Insight and quality of life in schizophrenia

The awareness of illness in schizophrenia has a new lease of interest, in particular with the techniques of much less thaninsight therapymuch greater than, striving to increase the level of patient's insight. However, little is known about links between this level of insight and its impact on the quality of life. In this work, we investigated, in 21 schizophrenic patients, the influence of insight on quality of life, taking into account confounding socio-demographic and clinical factors. The level of insight is appreciated using the Markova and Berrios Insight Scale and the G12 item of the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS). The patient's subjective quality of life is evaluated by the self-reported questionnaire S-QoL. No correlation was found between level of insight and socio-demographic and clinical factors. By contrast, a significant negative correlation between subjective evaluation of quality of life and level of insight is found. All S-QoL domains were concerned, in particular the much less thanself-esteemmuch greater than one. These results must be discussed in relation to psycho-educational treatment needs. (C) 2003 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. Tous droits reserves.