Social Impairments in Young Adults with Schizophrenia

Social Impairments in Young Adults with Schizophrenia
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Purpose of the Study
A review of studies on patients with schizophrenia indicates that most studies focus on patients with adult-onset of schizophrenia. It follows that few studies focus on patients with early onset of Schizophrenia, yet this is an important subject for professionals and scholars that specialize in schizophrenia. This owes to the reality that it is estimated that approximately 4% of all schizophrenia patients have their illness onset before 18 years of age. This has been termed as early onset schizophrenia (EOS), (Jespen et al., 2010). Schizophrenia risk factors may be different for different individuals. Such risk factors range from pre-pregnancy factors, pregnancy stress, social stress, family stress, or even environmental factors that a person experiences during childhood, teenage or early adult years. It is clear that understanding schizophrenia is important because it will help professionals to solve pertinent problems. The purpose of the study is to explore the studies associated with young adults with schizophrenia.
Facial emotional expression in schizophrenia adolescents during verbal interaction with a parent
Research among adult schizophrenia patients on emotional expressions indicates that such patients have impairments of facial expressions in social interactions. In fact, Lotzin, Haack-Dees, Resch, Romer, and Ramsauer (2013) reveal that impairments such as inappropriate affect, affective blunting, and anhedonia are considered symptoms of schizophrenia. It is notable that emotional expressions enable people to respond adaptively during social interactions. As evidence, emotional expressions reflect attitudes during social interactions, illustrate the verbal content of spoken words, and the emotional state of a person. It is evident that an emotional expression among Schizophrenia patients is an important subject for schizophrenia researchers. However, most studies examine emotional expressions among adult schizophrenia patients. Consequently, Lotzin et al., (2013) analyzed facial emotions for adolescents (aged between age 13 and age 17) with schizophrenia spectrum psychoses and compared them with non-patients adolescents in problem solving discussions with their primary givers.
The study recruited 14 adolescent schizophrenia patients and 14 non-patient adolescents for analysis. The participants all had caregivers and handed in written consents to participate in the study before it began. The also study took place two weeks after each patient was discharged from a psychiatric hospital. Three video recorders were used to collect moving images of the participants’ interactions with their caregivers for ten minutes. It is also critical that the Emotional Facial Action Coding System was used by an expert to rate facial movements. Data collected from the study was analyzed in SPSS using mixed linear models. The results indicated that Schizophrenia adolescents displayed significantly lesser rates per minute of appearances representing affirmative emotions likened to non-patient adolescents. Consequently, Lotzin et al., (2013) concluded that schizophrenia adolescents demonstrated an emotion-spe...