Impaired emotional awareness is associated with childhood maltreatment exposure and positive symptoms in schizophrenia.

Objectives: Evidence suggests that emotional awareness-the ability to identify and label emotions-may be impaired in schizophrenia and related to positive symptom severity. Exposure to childhood maltreatment is a risk factor for both low emotional awareness and positive symptoms.

Methods: The current investigation examines associations between a performance-based measure of emotional awareness, positive symptom severity, and childhood maltreatment exposure in 44 individuals with a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and 48 healthy comparison participants using the electronic Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (eLEAS), Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ).