The Role of Personal Identity in Psychotic Symptoms: a Study With the Repertory Grid Technique

Schizophrenia Clinical Trial

Official title:

Personal Identity, Cognitive Factors and Psychotic Symptoms in Schizophrenia and Related Disorders: A Cross-sectional Study With the Repertory Grid Technique

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03820362
• Other study ID #: FPU15/01721
• Status: Completed
• Start date: February 2016
• Est. completion date: November 2018

Study information

• Verified date: January 2019
• Source: University of Barcelona
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

Personal identity is being recently recognized as a core element for mental health disorders, with relevant clinical implications. However, scarcity of data exists on its role in schizophrenia and related disorders. The repertory grid (RGT), a technique derived from personal construct theory, has been used in different clinical and non-clinical contexts for the study of the construction perception of self and others, to appreciate aspects of interpersonal construing such as polarization and differentiation (unidimensional thinking) or self-construction.and Our study aims to explore the potential influence of the structure of personal identity and of other relevant cognitive factors (social cognition, metacognition, neurocognition) in positive and negative symptoms in people suffering schizophrenia and related disorders.

Description:

Over recent years, the importance of the sense of self and personal identity in psychopathology and its treatment has been highlighted. Several studies inspired in the Personal Construct Psychology framework have found a variety of identity characteristics in clinical conditions such as depression or eating disorders, but the evidence in schizophrenia and other psychotic related disorders is scarce.

In addition, current psychological models of positive and negative symptoms highlight the influence of neurocognition, social cognition and self-concepts in the development and maintenance of psychotic experiences. Despite the recognized need of person-centered approaches to understand psychopathology processes in psychosis, psychological models for explaining psychotic symptoms have not explored sufficiently the role of this kind of person-centered measures.

Aim

1. To examine the influence of the structure of personal identity and other relevant cognitive factors in positive and negative symptoms

Hypotheses

1. Positive symptoms will be influenced by dichotomous thinking style and construction of self as measured with the RGT.

2. Negative symptoms will be affected by the richness of the construct system as measured with the RGT.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 85
• Est. completion date: November 2018
• Est. primary completion date: November 2018
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 60 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• diagnosis of schizophrenia, psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, delusional disorder, schizoaffective disorder, brief psychotic disorder, or schizophreniform disorder

• age between 18 and 60 years.

• patients from outpatient mental health units

Exclusion Criteria:

• traumatic brain injury, dementia, or intellectual disability (pre-morbid IQ <70)

• current substance dependence

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Mental Disorders
• Psychotic Disorders
• Schizophrenia
• Self

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Spain	Parc Sanitary Sant Joan de Déu	Sant Boi De Llobregat	Barcelona

Sponsors (4)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Barcelona	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, Catalunya, Spain, Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional, Spain, Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Spain, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Self-ideal discrepancy, RGT	Self-esteem. Possible range: 0-0,60. Higher values represent a worse outcome	2 hours
Primary	Self-others discrepancy, RGT	Perceived social isolation. Possible range: 0-0,60. Higher values represent a worse outcome	2 hours
Primary	Interpersonal construct differentiation, RGT	Percentage of Variance Accounted for the First Factor. Possible range: 0-100. Higher values represent a worse outcome	2 hours
Primary	Polarization, RGT	Dichotomous thinking style in the interpersonal context. Possible range: 0-100. Higher values represent a worse outcome	2 hours
Primary	Number of elicited constructs, RGT	Quantity of constructs that the person is able to express to describe self and others. Possible range: 10-50. Higher values represent a better outcome	2 hours
Primary	Psychotic symptoms (PANSS, Kay et al. 1987; Peralta & Cuesta, 1994).	Positive and negative symptoms of psychosis. Range: 7-112. Higher values represent a worse outcome.	40 minutes
Primary	Metacognition: BCIS (Beck et al. 2004; Gutiérrez-Zotes et al. 2012); Garety et al, 1991; Dudley et al, 1997)	Cognitive insight. Range: 0-45. Higher values represent a better outcome	15 minutes
Primary	Theory of mind: the Hinting Task (Corcoran et al., 1995; Gil-Sanz et al., 2012)	Possible range: 0-12. Higher values represent a better outcome	5 minutes
Primary	General intellectual functioning (WAIS)	vocabulary subscale. Range: 70-140. Higher values represent a better outcome	20 minutes
Primary	Executive functioning: WSCT (Bergs et al., 1948)	Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Categories completed and perseverative errors. Higher values represent a better outcome	15 minutes
Secondary	Sociodemographical data	Gender, chronicity, antipsychotic dosage, diagnosis, age, marital status, education level, employment situation	10 minutes
Secondary	Depressive symptoms	Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et al. 1996; Sanz, Perdigón & Vázquez, 2003). Range_ 0-63. High values represent a worse outcome.	10 minutes
Secondary	General functioning	Global Assessment of Functioning (Endicot et al., 1976). Range: 0-100. Higher values represent a better outcome.	5 minutes
Secondary	Self-esteem	Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Martín Albó et al., 2007). Range: 0-40. Higher values represent a better outcome	5 minutes
Secondary	Social functioning	Social Functioning Scale (Birchwood et al., 1990; Torres & Olivares, 2000). Range: Range: 45-195	20 minutes
Secondary	Psychological distress	CORE-OM (Evans et al., 2002; Trujillo et al., 2016). Range: 0-4. Higher values represent a worse outcome	10 minutes
Secondary	Jumping to Conclusions	The beads task (Garety et al., 1991; Dudley et al, 1997). Dichotomous: yes/no. A "yes" represents a worse outcome	15 minutes