Negative symptoms in drug-naive patients with a first-episode psychosis (FEP)

Negative symptoms are nuclear features of schizophrenia that may be present from the onset of the disease. In recent years, it has been described 2 subdomains of negative symptoms: experiential and expressive deficits. The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between negative symptoms and demographic and clinical variables in patients with first-episode psychosis. Also, to explore whether there are differences in the association among these variables and negative symptoms when divided into both subdomains.

A cross-sectional study was performed in 160 patients (52 females and 108 males) with a diagnosis of a first episode psychosis. A questionnaire was administered to collect demographic and clinical variables.

A backward stepwise linear regressions analysis was performed in order to observe potential associations between demographic and clinical variables and the presence of negative symptoms. All three models are predicted by worse PSP score, a higher CDSS, a higher disorganized factor score and a lower excited factor score. A longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) is associated to a higher score in the experiential deficit subdomain only.

Our work highlights some clinical and phenomenological differences between experiential and expressive deficits. We think that taking into account both subdomains in future studies may lead to more accurate clinical assessment and interventions.