Depression predicts self assessment of social function in both patients with schizophrenia and healthy people.

BACKGROUND:Impairments in social functioning are central to Schizophrenia (SCZ). Patients with SCZ have challenges in the ability to evaluate their functioning. A correlate of self-assessments in SCZ is depression, wherein negligible depression predicts overestimation. Healthy individuals misestimate their functioning, but mild dysthymia predicts accuracy. We examined depression, gender, and schizophrenia as predictors of self-reported everyday functioning. METHODS:218 people with SCZ and 154 healthy controls self-reported their social functioning. They self-reported their depression with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and their social cognitive ability on the Observable Social Cognition Rating Scale (OSCARS). RESULTS:64% of subjects were male. Schizophrenia patients reported more depression, poorer social functioning, and worse social cognition. Linear regression analyses revealed significant correlations between self-reported social functioning and BDI scores, which also predicted self-reported social cognition. There was no significant effect of sex on self-reports of social functioning or social cognition. Finally, when BDI and OSCARS were directly compared to diagnosis and sex for prediction of self-reported social functioning, there was no impact of diagnosis or sex. IMPLICATIONS:Self-reported interpersonal functioning is determined by current depression. Both healthy people and people with schizophrenia index their social functioning and their social cognitive by their level of depression.