Patients’ insight into schizophrenia is significantly associated with how their biologic parents view the illness, according to Dr. Alexandra Macgregor and her associates.
No association was found between patient and parent insight in any of the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder dimensions; however, an association was found between patients’ and parents’ treatment effect awareness when there was frequent contact between parents and patients. Low parental critical attitude and high parental cognition both were positively associated with patient insight, reported Dr. Macgregor of Montpellier University Hospital, France.
The study “is the first to suggest a possible influence of parental factors such as critical attitudes and cognitive performance on patient insight,” the investigators concluded. “Encouraging regular contact between patients and their family should be [an] objective of clinical teams.”
Find the full study in Psychiatry Research (2015 Aug 30;228:879-86).