Social cognitive problem-solving in schizophrenia: associations with fluency and verbal memory

This study assessed the relationship between social functioning and neurocognitive function in individuals with schizophrenia. Social cognitive problem-solving (SCPS) is a significant contributor to social competence and is an aspect of information processing that is involved in the identification and resolution of interpersonal or social problems. We examined 49 schizophrenia patients and 28 healthy controls using the means-ends problem-solving procedure (MEPS) for SCPS, the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and a series of fluency tests for neurocognitive assessment, as well as the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). Fluency tests can be used to evaluate divergent thinking, and a qualitative analysis was done of the fluency test responses. The results suggest that patients with schizophrenia have a significantly poorer MEPS performance than normal controls. In patients with normal RAVLT scores, MEPS scores were correlated with task-modified responses on the fluency test but not with any of the WCST scores. This suggests that SCPS is related to divergent thinking that requires concept flexibility and/or the conversion of viewpoint in patients with schizophrenia in whom verbal memory function is preserved.