An association study of empathy and executive function in schizophrenic patients
10.3760/cma.j.issn.1674-6554.2010.05.008
- VernacularTitle:精神分裂症患者共情能力及其与执行功能的关系
- Author:
Fengfeng ZHANG
;
Yi DONG
;
Kai WANG
;
Zhiyu ZAN
;
Zhijun ZHANG
;
Fang JI
;
Qi YANG
;
Sisi XIE
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- Keywords:
Schizophrenia;
Empathy;
Executive function;
Cognitive disorders
- From:
Chinese Journal of Behavioral Medicine and Brain Science
2010;19(5):408-411
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
Objective To investigate the empathic abilities and the association between empathic abilities and executive function in schizophrenic patients. Methods Empathy with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index-C (IRI-C) and executive function with Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) , Stroop Color-Word Task (Stroop), Spatial n-back Task (n-back) were applied to 74 schizophrenic patients and 69 healthy controls. Results Compared with healthy controls, schizophrenic patients showed significantly lower total scores ((46. 8 ± 10. 0) vs (51.5 ±9.7), P<0.01),and subscores in Perspective Taking ((9.5 ±4.2) vs (12.2 ±3.9) , P<0. 01), Fantasy ((12.5 ±4.2) vs (15.5 ±3.8), P<0.01) and Empathic Concern((15. 9 ±4.2) vs (17. 3 ±3.4), P< 0.05) ,but higher subscore((8.8 ±5. 1) vs (6.5 ±3.7), P<0.01) in personal distress of IRI-C. A significant difference(P<0.01) were fund on the scores of WCST, Stroop task and n-back task between schizophrenic patients and healthy controls. Pearson correlation analysis showed that the total scores of IRI-C was negatively correlated with the response administered (Ra), the number of responses errors (Re) and non-perseverative errors (nRpe) of WCST (r= -0.293, r= -0.253, r= -0.272, P<0.05) respectively, that empathic concern sub-score of IRI-C was negatively correlated with Ra, Re, perseverative responses (Rp) and perseverative errors (Rpe) of WCST (r= -0.326, r= -0.300, r= -0.294, r= -0.287, P<0.01 -0.05) respectively , but positively correlated with Rfp. of WCST (r=0.279, P<0.05), and that the fantasy subscore of IRI-C was negatively correlated with the reaction time of B part(r= -0.299, P<0.01) and C part (r= -0.322, P<0.01) of the Stroop task. Conclusion Schizophrenics have a general impairment of empathy and executive function,and affective empathy is related to the executive function, suggesting that the impairment of executive function maybe the one of pathological mechanism for the empathic deficit of patients with schizophrenia.
