Browsing by Author "Sinkkonen, Tara"

Psychotic symptoms are known to be associated with deficits in social functions. Previous research has shown that lower social functioning and less social support is associated with both psychotic disorders and subclinical psychotic symptoms. Social capital, however, has barely been studied in relation to psychotic symptoms. Also, few studies have investigated whether the associations of social factors differ between different psychotic symptoms and no study has examined social functioning, social support and social capital in the same study. The aim of the current study is to investigate whether social functioning, social support and social capital have differing associations to different psychotic symptoms and to the prevalence of a psychotic disorder. The data of this study was the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2007, a representative community sample of over 16-year-olds living in private households in England (n = 7 403). Psychotic symptoms were assessed with the Psychosis Screening Questionnaire (PSQ) and consisted of hallucinations, paranoia, (hypo-)mania, thought interference and strange experience. Social functioning was assessed with the Social Functioning Questionnaire (SFQ). Assessment of social support consisted of two sections: social network size assessed with the Interview Measure of Social Relationships (IMRS) and perceived social support assessed with the Health and Lifestyle Survey. Social capital also consisted of two sections: social cohesion and trust, and social participation. The associations of the social variables to different psychotic symptoms and to a psychotic disorder were analyzed using logistic regression, entering social functioning, social support and social capital stepwise as predictors. Social functioning was independently associated with every psychotic symptom as well as with the prevalence of a psychotic disorder. For hallucinations, (hypo-)mania and thought interference lower social functioning was the only predictor. For social support only social network size was found to have associations: smaller social network was independently associated with psychotic disorder and paranoia. For social capital only social cohesion and trust was associated with two of the psychotic symptoms: lower levels on social cohesion and trust were independently associated with strange experience and paranoia. Paranoia was the only symptom to be independently associated with all the social variables. The results show that different psychotic symptoms and psychotic disorder differ in the social factors they are associated with. Further research should investigate how these differences develop, and what part do other factors, for example negative symptoms, social cognition and neurocognition, play in the association between social factors and psychotic symptoms.