Theory of mind in early psychosis.
AIM
A deficit in theory of mind--the ability to infer and reason about the mental states of others - might underpin the poor social functioning of patients with psychosis. Unfortunately, however, there is considerable variation in how such a deficit is assessed. The current study compared three classic tests of theory of mind in terms of their ability to detect impairment in patients in the early stages of psychosis.


METHODS
Twenty-three patients within 2 years of their first psychotic episode and 19 healthy controls received picture-sequencing, joke-appreciation and story-comprehension tests of theory of mind.


RESULTS
Whereas the picture-sequencing and joke-appreciation tests successfully detected a selective theory-of-mind deficit in patients, the story-comprehension test did not.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that tests that place minimal demands on language processing and involve indirect, rather than explicit, instructions to assess theory of mind might be best suited to detecting theory-of-mind impairment in early stages of psychosis.
['Langdon|Robyn|R|', 'Still|Megan|M|', 'Connors|Michael H|MH|', 'Ward|Philip B|PB|', 'Catts|Stanley V|SV|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D016022:Case-Control Studies D003072:Cognition Disorders D042241:Early Diagnosis D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D011237:Predictive Value of Tests D011581:Psychological Tests D011618:Psychotic Disorders D056345:Theory of Mind D055815:Young Adult
theory of mind early psychosis first-episode psychosis schizophrenia