Journal of Clinical Case Reports

Relationship between self-concept clarity, positive and negative symptoms among patients with schizophrenia

Abstract

Sanaa Shaheen*, Gehad Mohamed Abou-Elmaaty

Background: Disturbance in self-concept clarity is suggested to be considered as one of a core feature of schizophrenia. A growing body of research reflects that the incoherence or disorganization in sense of self may mask individuals with schizophrenia from perceiving reality accurately. Patients often perceived themselves as if they lost contact to themselves and usually spent a lot of time wondering about the kind of person they are. Objective: This study aimed to assess the self- concept clarity, as well as positive and negative symptoms among patients with schizophrenia. And, to identify the relationship between self- concept clarity and both positive and negative symptoms among patients with schizophrenia. Settings: The study was conducted at EL-Maamoura Hospital for Psychiatric Medicine, in Alexandria, Egypt. Subjects: A sampling of 200 inpatients with schizophrenia were randomly selected. Tools: The socio-demographic and clinical structured interview schedule was used to elicit data about the patient's socio-demographic and clinical characteristics such as age, sex, educational level, duration of illness, and age at the beginning of illness. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS-version 4.0) to examine the existence and severity of different psychiatric symptoms and the Self-Concept Clarity Scale to measure the perceived internal consistency and temporal stability of self-beliefs. Results: Findings of the present study revealed that around half of the studied sample demonstrated low self-concept clarity (50.5%). Whereas, more than one third of the studied sample (38.5%) had moderate self-concept clarity. Moreover, a statistically significant correlations were found between self-concept clarity in relation to positive and negative symptoms among the studied schizophrenic patients (rs= 0.242, P<0.001, and rs= 0.225, P=0.001, respectively). The overall brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) was proved to be the independent predictor of the self-concept clarity Conclusion: The present study concludes that the studied subjects demonstrated low self-concept clarity and self-concept clarity was significantly correlated with psychopathology in relation to positive and negative symptoms among the studied patients with schizophrenia. Recommendations: Conducting psycho-educational program regarding how to develop clear, consistent and stable sense of self would directly foster patients’ wellbeing and integration into the community.