Social competence in schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and negative and non-negative schizophrenia

Social skill and role functioning were assessed in matched groups of patients with DSM-III-R schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Schizophrenics were categorized as negative syndrome or non-negative on the basis of the SANS. The negative schizophrenics were significantly more impaired on almost every measure of social functioning. The other three groups were not consistently different from one another. The results suggest that when patients are comparable on dimensions such as duration and severity of illness, schizoaffectives do not occupy an intermediate position between schizophrenics without negative syndrome and bipolar patients. Rather, the three groups exhibit similar degrees of social disability. In contrast, negative syndrome schizophrenics were more impaired even when they were similar in chronicity and severity.