The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on negative symptoms in individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis and outpatients with chronic schizophrenia.

Autor: Strauss GP; Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, 30602, USA. gstrauss@uga.edu., Macdonald KI; Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, 30602, USA., Ruiz I; Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, 30602, USA., Raugh IM; Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, 30602, USA., Bartolomeo LA; Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, 30602, USA., James SH; Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, 30602, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience [Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci] 2022 Feb; Vol. 272 (1), pp. 17-27. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Apr 21.
DOI: 10.1007/s00406-021-01260-0
Abstrakt: Negative symptoms are core features of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders that are frequently observed across all phases of illness. By their nature, COVID-19 social isolation, physical distancing, and health precautions induce behavioural aspects of negative symptoms. However, it is unclear whether these prevention measures also lead to increases in experiential negative symptoms, whether such effects are equivalent across individual negative symptom domains, and if exacerbations occur equivalently across phases of illness. The current study compared negative symptom severity scores obtained during the pandemic to pre-pandemic assessments in two samples: (1) outpatients with chronic schizophrenia (SZ: n = 32) and matched healthy controls (CN: n = 31) and (2) individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR: n = 25) and matched CN (n = 30). Pre-pandemic ratings of negative symptoms were clinically elevated in SZ and CHR groups, which did not differ from each other in severity. In SZ, ratings obtained during the pandemic were significantly higher than pre-pandemic ratings for all 5 domains (alogia, blunted affect, anhedonia, avolition, and asociality) and item-level analyses indicated that exacerbations occurred on both experiential and behavioral symptoms of anhedonia, avolition, and asociality. In contrast, CHR only exhibited increases in anhedonia and avolition items during the pandemic compared to pre-ratings. Findings suggest that negative symptoms should be a critical treatment target during and after the pandemic in the schizophrenia spectrum given that they are worsening and critically related to risk for conversion, functional outcome, and recovery.
(© 2021. Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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