Patients with schizophrenia who have specific personality traits showed high real-world functioning in spite of reduced functional capacity.

Poster C23, Wednesday, October%2010, 11:30%20am%20-%201:00%20pm, Essex%20Ballroom

Takashi Uchino1,2, Takahiro Nemoto1, Tomoyuki Funatogawa1, Taiju Yamaguchi1, Naoyuki Katagiri1, Naohisa Tsujino1, Kuniaki Tanaka2, Masafumi Mizuno1; 1Toho University School of Medicine, 2Tokyo Adachi Hospital

To achieve early recovery among patients with schizophrenia, real-world functioning needs to be improved. Numerous studies have shown that real-world functioning depends on functional capacity which indicates ability to perform everyday living tasks. However, some patients with schizophrenia were found to have high real-world functioning despite their reduced functional capacity. We hypothesized that they have specific personality traits, based on previous studies which showed that personality traits were one of the endophenotypes of human beings which affect behavior in real-world settings. Measures used in this study were TCI-R for personality traits, UPSA-B for functional capacity, and SFS for real-world functioning. A total of 46 stable outpatients with schizophrenia (17 males and 29 females, mean age 39.3) were recruited and 18 patients showed lower functional capacity than the score indicated by a previous study. Furthermore, of those 18 patients, they were divided into two groups by the average score of real-world functioning; 13 landed above and 5 landed below the average. Then the groups’ personality traits were compared. The group of individuals with high real-world functioning but low functional capacity showed significantly lower Harm Avoidance (HA) level than the other group of individuals with low real-world functioning and functional capacity (mean HA score, 59.7 vs 76.4). This result suggests that unworried and extroverted behaviors based on low HA contributed to maintain high real-world functioning in spite of reduced functional capacity. A psychosocial treatment considering personality traits may be able to improve real-world functioning meaningfully contributing to successful recovery.

Topic Area: Psychosocial Interventions

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