Expressed emotion and attributions in relatives of schizophrenia patients with and without substance misuse

To test the hypotheses that carers of patients with schizophrenia (single diagnosis) and schizophrenia and co-occurring drug or alcohol misuse (dual diagnosis) will differ in terms of expressed emotion (EE) and their attributions for patient problems.

In a cross-sectional study, two samples of 42 single- and dual-diagnosis carers are compared in terms of EE and attributions. Patient symptoms are assessed to control for differences other than substance misuse.

The study supports the hypothesis that high-EE, dual-diagnosis carers tend to see patient problems as more blaming (internal, controllable and personal) than do single-diagnosis patients. This difference was particularly marked when making causal ascriptions for deficit behaviours. Although there were no differences in overall EE levels in the two groups, there were significantly more carers who were rated as hostile and rejecting in the dual-diagnosis group.

The findings highlight the importance of family intervention for this patient group.