Emotional reactivity to daily life stress in psychosis.

Background: The vulnerability-stress model of psychotic disorders describes, in essence, an interaction between personal vulnerability and environmental stressors. The present study investigated this interaction and studied emotional reactivity to daily life stress as a vulnerability marker for psychotic illness.

Methods: Patients with psychotic illness (n = 42), their first-degree relatives (n = 47), and control subjects (n = 49) were studied with the Experience Sampling Method (a structured diary technique assessing thoughts, current context, and mood in daily life) to assess (1) appraised subjective stress of daily events and smaller disturbances in daily life and (2) emotional reactivity conceptualized as changes in both negative affect and positive affect.

High expressed emotion: marker for a caring family?

"Expressed emotion" (EE) is considered a marker of dysfunctional family interaction in patients with schizophrenia. An alternative hypothesis, however, is that at least some of the different elements of EE really represent attempts on the part of carers to cope with and care for a relative with a psychiatric disorder. EE (criticism and emotional overinvolvement) was measured in relatives (n = 31) of patients with psychotic illness using the Five-Minute Speech Sample (FMSS).

MACS-II: does coping enhance subjective control over psychotic symptoms?

Objective: Associations between subjective experience of control and the use of self-initiated coping strategies were examined in patients with psychotic symptoms.

Method: Twenty-three patients were interviewed to assess (i) the subjective experience of distress with and control over symptoms and (ii) the coping strategies used.

Results: There was a positive association between coping type and control (OR = 1.

Maastricht Assessment of Coping Strategies (MACS-I): a brief instrument to assess coping with psychotic symptoms.

Objective: To examine the reliability of a brief instrument to assess coping with symptoms by patients with psychotic illness.

Method: A semi-structured interview (MACS) was developed to assess the amounts of distress, control and coping in relation to psychotic symptoms. Two raters interviewed 23 symptomatic but stable patients with a diagnosis of chronic schizophrenia on two separate occasions.

The context of delusional experiences in the daily life of patients with schizophrenia.

Background: Global characteristics and psychosocial risk factors related to delusions have been identified. The present study extends these findings to the level of everyday functioning, identifying characteristics of delusional moments (DMs) and contextual risk and protective factors for delusional exacerbations in daily life.

Methods: Data were collected using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a time-sampling technique.

Single or multiple familial cognitive risk factors in schizophrenia?

The fact that relatives of patients with schizophrenia display subtle cognitive abnormalities suggests genetic transmission of an underlying cognitive endophenotype. It was examined to what extent the cognitive abnormalities that discriminate patients and relatives from controls do so independently of each other, and independent of IQ. Neuropsychological measures were assessed in 50 patients with schizophrenia, 50 first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, and 50 healthy controls.

Neighbourhood variation in incidence of schizophrenia. Evidence for person-environment interaction.

Background: Neighbourhood characteristics may influence the risk of psychosis, independently of their individual-level equivalents.

Aims: To examine these issues in a multi-level model of schizophrenia incidence.

Method: Cases of schizophrenia, incident between 1986 and 1997, were identified from the Maastricht Mental Health Case Register.

Schizophrenia patients are more emotionally active than is assumed based on their behavior.

Flat affect is a core symptom of schizophrenia. To date, researchers have focused primarily on emotional expression. Only recently has the emotional experience of patients with schizophrenia been studied in laboratory settings.

Naturalistic assessments in psychiatry.

Research in psychiatry could speeden its progress by taking the manifest heterogenity and variability of symptom expression within diagnostic groups more fully into account. Since Kraepelin symptom variation has been recognized to have both biological and environmental roots. If investigated systematically, such variations in illness experience will yield new subtypes that will provide greater insight into the onset, course and vulnerability of mental disorders.

Time, context, and subjective experiences in schizophrenia.

Systematic investigations into the experience of schizophrenic patients as they react and adapt to social environments are rare. Yet such information is extremely useful for understanding the psychopathology of schizophrenia, the planning of treatments, as well as for creating optimal treatment and living environments. In this study, dynamic fluctuations of mental state, social context, and experience in the daily life of schizophrenic patients were measured.

The daily life of ambulatory chronic mental patients.

The purpose of this research is to describe in greater detail than is typically done the daily life experiences of 11 ambulatory chronic mental patients and 11 nonpsychiatric controls. The subjects, although diagnostically heterogeneous, were representative of Dutch chronic mental patients. The Experience-Sampling Method was used to signal subjects randomly 10 times a day for 6 consecutive days to fill out self-rating forms assessing mental state and contextual information at the moment of the signal.