Cognitive Insight in Patients with Schizophrenia: An Exploratory Study

The aim of the present study is to study the cognitive insight between male and female  patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe psychiatric disorder characterized by “positive” symptoms such hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorders, and by “negative” symptoms, such as alogia, anhedonia, avolition, and flattening of affect (American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Andreasen & Carpenter, 1993). According to Beck et al. (2004), an important extension of the insight concept was introduced with the description of “cognitive insight,” which was defined as a patient’s current capacity to evaluate his or her anomalous experiences and atypical interpretations of events. Methodology-The sample size is 60 in total, where 30 male patient  and 30 female patients between 18 to 59 years of age with diagnosis of schizophrenia as per ICD-10 criteria and the study was conducted at the inpatients and Outpatient Department of PGIBAMS, Raipur (Chhattisgarh), has been taken for the study through purposive sampling. The tools used for assessing the variables are Socio-Demographic and Clinical Data Sheet, The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for Schizophrenia (Kay et al, 1987), Beck Cognitive Insight Scale. (BCIS) (Beck et al., 2004). Result and conclusion: There is no significant difference between male and female groups of cognitive insight profile.