Assessing risk factors and levels of functioning across the continuum of psychosis

Schizophrenia and other related psychotic disorders are often associated with impairments in social and general functioning. It has been proposed that there may be underlying factors such as personality traits or cognitive abilities that contribute to one's psychosis proneness, or levels of schizotypy. In the current study, we expect to see a decline in overall functioning and verbal memory according to symptom severity. Particularly, we hypothesize a similar pattern with overall functioning and verbal memory in regards to negative symptomology with comparable results between an outpatient sample and those with high levels of schizotypy. Furthermore, based on prior research, we anticipate specific cognitive abilities like verbal memory and certain personality traits to predict success on performance-based tasks related to social and general functioning. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) will be conducted to examine the differences in performance-based tasks (SSPA, UPSA-B, and verbal memory task scores) across the 5 groups based on overall and negative symptom severity (3 subclinical from an undergraduate sample & 2 clinical from an outpatient sample). Hierarchical linear regression analyses will be run to examine how well verbal memory and the 5 personality characteristics (while controlling for symptom severity) predict scores on performance-based tasks (SSPA and UPSA=B scores).

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Castorina, James

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dinzeo, Thomas

• Schizophrenia; Risk Factors
• Psychiatric and Mental Health

Repository record dc:identifier

https://rdw.rowan.edu/etd/365

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:rdw.rowan.edu:etd-1364