Facial emotion recognition and its association with symptom severity, functionality, and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia: preliminary results

espanolIntroduccion. Existe evidencia de que los pacientes con esquizofrenia tienen mayor dificultad para reco-nocer las emociones faciales, lo cual se ha relacionado con el deterioro cognitivo que se manifiesta en esta enfermedad y con una mayor gravedad sintomatica, que parece dar lugar a un peor pronostico funcional. Objetivo. Determinar la asociacion del reconocimiento facial de emociones con la gravedad sintomatica, funcionalidad y deterioro cognitivo en un grupo de pacientes con esquizofrenia. Metodo. Un estudio obser-vacional, transversal y correlacional realizado con 72 pacientes. Se utilizaron las escalas: PANSS, MOCA, ERI y FACT-Sz para evaluar la gravedad sintomatica, el funcionamiento cognitivo, el reconocimiento facial de emociones y la funcionalidad, respectivamente. Se utilizo el Coeficiente de Correlacion de Pearson para medir la asociacion lineal entre dichas variables. Resultados. Se encontro de forma global una gravedad sintomatica moderada y una discapacidad cognitiva y funcional leve. La alegria fue la emocion mas recono-cida (70%) y la ira la menos reconocida. Se encontro una asociacion positiva entre el reconocimiento de la ira y la gravedad de la subescala cognitiva de la PANSS (r = -.24, p = .03), el reconocimiento de la tristeza y la gravedad de la subescala negativa de la PANSS (r = -.24, p = .03), y la puntuacion de la FACT-Sz y el reconocimiento del miedo (r = .31, p = .008). Discusion y conclusion. El presente estudio muestra algunos resultados preliminares que nos permiten tener una perspectiva mas amplia de lo que ocurre con el recono-cimiento facial de emociones en la esquizofrenia y, de forma indirecta, en la interaccion social y la disfuncion que presentan quienes lo padecen EnglishIntroduction. There is evidence to suggest that individuals with schizophrenia have greater difficulty in recognizing facial emotions, which has been related to cognitive impairment and higher symptom severity in this disease and seems to lead to a worse functional prognosis. Objective. To determine the association between facial emotion recognition and symptom severity, functionality, and cognitive impairment in a sample of schizophrenic patients. Method. This is an observational, cross-sectional, and correlational study conducted on 72 patients. The following scales: PANSS, MOCA, ERI, and FACT-Sz were used to assess symptom severity in schizophrenia, cognitive functioning, facial emotion recognition, and functionality, respectively. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to measure the linear association between all variables. Results. Overall, moderate symptom severity and mild cognitive and functional disability were found. The most frequently recognized emotion was joy (70%) and the least frequently recognized one was anger. A positive association was also found between anger recognition and severity of the PANSS cognitive subscale (r = - .24, p = .03), sadness recognition and severity of the PANSS negative subscale (r = - .24, p = .03), and the FACT-Sz score and fear recognition (r = .31, p = .008). Discussion and conclusion. The present study yields preliminary results that provide a broader perspective on facial emotion recognition and, indirectly, social interaction and functionality in people with schizophrenia.