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Impairments in facial expression recognition in patients with euthymic bipolar disorders using the facial emotions
Alexandre Carpentier1, Bernard Angerville2, Sophie Delille3
1Service Pathologies Résistantes (SPR), Pôle Ressource Évaluation en Réhabilitation PsychoSociale (PRERPS), Centre Hospitalier Isarien, Clermont de l'Oise 60600, France; Université Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, 80000, France.
Background:
Patients with bipolar disorders (BD) have significant impairments in Facial Expression Recognition (FER), an essential social skill for effective social interactions. While the Facial Emotions Recognition Test, 54 photographs by Gaudelus (TREF-54g) has been used in patients with schizophrenia, no study has evaluated FER using this test in BD patients. The TREF-54g meets the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) criteria for assessing FER. The objective of this study was to compare FER in patients with euthymic BD versus healthy controls (HC) using the TREF-54g.
Methods:
This study included 60 patients with BD diagnosed according to DSM-5 criteria, 30 with bipolar I disorder (BDI) and 30 with bipolar II disorder (BDII) and 60 HC. All groups were matched for age, gender, and years of education. Overall TREF-54g impairment score was defined as a difference of two SD from the group of HC with mean overall accuracy score expressed as a percentage of correct responses.
Results:
Overall TREF-54g impairment scores, as well as sub-scores for anger and contempt recognition, were significantly higher in patients with BD versus those in HC. No significant differences in TREF-54g scores were shown between patients with BDI and those with BDII.
Limitations:
Clinical assessments of this study didn't include neurocognition assessments and classification of contempt emotion as a basic emotion remains controversial.
Conclusions:
We found significant impairments in FER in patients with euthymic BD, particularly for anger and contempt using the TREF-54g a test that meets ISBD recommendation criteria.
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