Factors Influencing Social Functioning of People With Schizophrenia

In the last decades the impact of several variables on patients' social functioning has been investigated with conflicting findings. The involved variables might be grouped in three main categories: a) disease-related variables; b) personal resources; c) context-related factors. The present study is aimed to identify factors that affect most real-life functioning of subjects with schizophrenia and to assess negative and depressive symptoms, neurocognitive deficits and impairment of social cognition. Domains of negative symptoms and cognitive dysfunctions most associated with impairment of real-life functioning will be identified and appropriate data analyses will be carried out to define whether it has a direct or indirect impact on real-life functioning. The research units of Turin and Genua will also investigate the relationships between insight into the illness and real-life social functioning. The research unit of Genua will evaluate prevalence and course of depressive symptoms, insight impairment and neurocognitive deficits, and will define the relationships of these aspects with suicidal behavior and real-life social functioning. The Naples research unit n.1 will investigate the hypothesis that deficits of preattentive and perceptual functions underlie impaired social cognition and negative symptoms. An electrophysiological study will be carried out in which abnormalities of event-related components and gamma rhythm synchronization, relevant to preattentive and perceptual stages of information processing, will be studied as endophenotypes of the disorder. The study will also investigate the heritability of disease-related variables by evaluating them in non-affected, first-degree relatives of subjects with schizophrenia. The research unit of Bari will test functionality of genetic variants relevant to dopaminergic signaling, that might confer risk for neurocognitive and related prefrontal dysfunction assessed by specific functional magnetic resonance imaging