The structure and invariance of a model of social functioning in schizophrenia

The authors proposed and tested a model of social functioning in schizophrenia. The model consisted of five indicators: social competence, quality of relations, satisfaction, symmetry of relationships, and the number of close friends. The model combines proximal and distal, quality and quantity, and self-report and observer ratings of social functioning. It was designed to have ecological validity in that it reflects real-world social functioning, and the data are all gathered in reference to naturally occurring social contexts. Two independent community samples of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (N = 172; N = 166) were used to test the structure of the measurement model and its invariance across samples. Additional measures of social functioning, prognosis, and intrapsychic deficits were used to further assess the validity of the proposed social functioning construct. A single-factor model had acceptable fit with the data from sample 1. The single-factor model was found to be invariant across the two independent samples. Correlations with other measures in both samples provided additional evidence for the construct validity of the proposed measurement model of social functioning. Implications for research and practice are discussed.