Comparison of social cognition using an adapted Chinese version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test in drug-naive and regularly medicated individuals with chronic schizophrenia and healthy controls in rural China.

Background: Social cognition has not previously been assessed in treatment-naive patients with chronic schizophrenia, in patients over 60 years of age, or in patients with less than 5 years of schooling.

Methods: We revised a commonly used measure of social cognition, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), by expanding the instructions, using both self-completion and interviewer-completion versions (for illiterate respondents), and classifying each test administration as 'successfully completed' or 'incomplete'. The revised instrument (RMET-CV-R) was administered to 233 treatment-naive patients with chronic schizophrenia (UT), 154 treated controls with chronic schizophrenia (TC), and 259 healthy controls (HC) from rural communities in China.

Association Between the Duration of Untreated Psychosis and Selective Cognitive Performance in Community-Dwelling Individuals With Chronic Untreated Schizophrenia in Rural China.

Importance: Cognitive deficits constitute core features of schizophrenia, but the trajectories of cognitive difficulties in chronic untreated schizophrenia remain unclear.

Objective: To assess the association of neuropsychological deficits with duration of untreated psychosis in individuals with chronic untreated schizophrenia.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Community-dwelling individuals with chronic untreated schizophrenia (untreated patient group) and individuals without mental illness (control group) were recruited from predominantly rural communities in Ningxia, China between June 20, 2016, and August 6, 2019, and administered the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, the Mini-Mental State Examination, an 8-test version of the MATRICS Consensus Cognition Battery adapted for use in individuals with low levels of education, and a measure of social cognition.