PMID- 23422729
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20131025
LR  - 20160526
IS  - 1573-2509 (Electronic)
IS  - 0920-9964 (Linking)
VI  - 146
IP  - 1-3
DP  - 2013 May
TI  - Social dysfunction in schizophrenia: an investigation of the GAF scale's 
      sensitivity to deficits in social cognition.
PG  - 363-5
LID - S0920-9964(13)00054-6 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.schres.2013.01.016 [doi]
AB  - BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia is accompanied by significant impairment in 
      psychosocial functioning, which is only partially explained by clinical symptom 
      severity. Recently, these impairments have been strongly associated with deficits 
      in neurocognition and social cognition. Although the Global Assessment of 
      Function (GAF) scale remains the most widely used measure of psychosocial 
      function in clinical practice, it is unclear whether this instrument is sensitive 
      to changes in cognition, or merely provides a snapshot of symptom severity. To 
      investigate this, we assessed whether variation in GAF score was explained by 
      performance on measures of neurocognitive and social cognition, particularly 
      after variation associated with symptom severity had been accounted for. METHODS: 
      216 patients with schizophrenia were assessed using the GAF scale, two theory of 
      mind tasks (the 'Hinting' task and 'Reading the Eyes in the Mind' task), and a 
      neuropsychological battery sensitive to the areas of deficit typically seen in 
      schizophrenia - IQ, episodic memory, working memory and attentional control. 
      RESULTS: Using linear regression analysis, symptom severity explained 24% of the 
      variance in GAF scores (F(3, 188) = 21.14, p<.001). While neuropsychological 
      performance explained a further 4.7% of variation (r(2)change = .047, Fchange (1, 
      187) = 12.63, p<.001), social cognition did not explain any further variance in 
      functioning (r(2)change = .006, Fchange (1, 186) = 1.63, p = .20). CONCLUSION: 
      These data indicate that GAF scores are primarily sensitive to variation in 
      clinical symptoms severity and not at all sensitive to variation in social 
      cognition, an important determinant of real world outcome. Doing so highlights 
      the need to supplement the measurement of psychosocial function using the GAF in 
      clinical practice with functional measures that are more sensitive to deficits in 
      social cognition.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
FAU - Robertson, Deirdre A
AU  - Robertson DA
AD  - Department of Psychiatry & Neuropsychiatric Genetics Research Group, School of 
      Medicine & Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, The Trinity Center, St 
      James's Hospital, Dublin 8, Ireland.
FAU - Hargreaves, April
AU  - Hargreaves A
FAU - Kelleher, Eric B
AU  - Kelleher EB
FAU - Morris, Derek
AU  - Morris D
FAU - Gill, Michael
AU  - Gill M
FAU - Corvin, Aiden
AU  - Corvin A
FAU - Donohoe, Gary
AU  - Donohoe G
LA  - eng
GR  - Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20130217
PL  - Netherlands
TA  - Schizophr Res
JT  - Schizophrenia research
JID - 8804207
SB  - IM
MH  - Adolescent
MH  - Adult
MH  - Aged
MH  - Cognition Disorders/*diagnosis/etiology
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Male
MH  - Middle Aged
MH  - *Neuropsychological Tests
MH  - Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
MH  - Regression Analysis
MH  - Schizophrenia/complications
MH  - *Schizophrenic Psychology
MH  - Sensitivity and Specificity
MH  - Social Behavior Disorders/*diagnosis/etiology
MH  - Young Adult
EDAT- 2013/02/21 06:00
MHDA- 2013/10/26 06:00
CRDT- 2013/02/21 06:00
PHST- 2012/09/19 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2013/01/03 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2013/01/10 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2013/02/21 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2013/02/21 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2013/10/26 06:00 [medline]
AID - S0920-9964(13)00054-6 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.schres.2013.01.016 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Schizophr Res. 2013 May;146(1-3):363-5. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2013.01.016. Epub 
      2013 Feb 17.