Facial emotion perception and schizophrenia symptoms.

AIM: Emotion recognition is an important aspect of social interactions. Patients suffering from schizophrenia exhibit some disturbances in affective processing. The aim of the study was the evaluation of facial emotion perception and its relation to the psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia patients.
METHODS: 102 patients with schizophrenia (F20.0, ICD 10) and 50 healthy volunteers participated in the study; all the subjects were 18-60 years old. Psychical condition was assessed with following diagnostic tools: CGI (Clinical Global Impression Scale), PANSS (Positive and Negative Syndromes Scale), CDSS (Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia), UKU (Side Effect Rating Scale). Facial emotion recognition ability was assessed by SIE-T (Emotional Intelligence Scale - Faces).
RESULTS: On the basis of gathered data it was found that patients suffering from schizophrenia performed worse on facial emotion recognition task compared to the healthy subjects. Severity of negative symptoms corresponded with the facial emotion perception impairment. There was no relation found between age of schizophrenia-onset and level of the facial emotion perception impairment, but the facial emotion recognition ability was worsening with the age of the subjects, both healthy and suffering from schizophrenia.
CONCLUSIONS: Severity of schizophrenia corresponded with the facial emotion perception impairment.