The relationship between self-disorders (SDS) and depressive/anxious symptoms in a clinical sample of adolescents

INTRODUCTION: Self-disorders (SDs) have been described as a core feature of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Previous studies conducted on heterogeneous clinical adult and adolescents samples demonstrated that SDs aggregate selectively in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders compared to other disorders. OBJECTIVES: To examine the specificity of SDs for schizophrenia spectrum disorders in adolescent inpatient sample. METHODS: Fifty-five adolescent inpatients admitted to the Child Psychiatry Unit at the Sapienza University in Rome were assessed for psychopathology using Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS-PL), Structured Interview for Prodromal Syndromes (SIPS/SOPS),Examination of Anomalous Self-Experiences (EASE), Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC), Calgary depression scale for schizophrenia (CDSS) RESULTS: Patients, aged 14-18 years, were divided in four diagnostic groups: schizophrenia spectrum disorders (5 pts.), mood disorders (19 pts.), anxiety disorders (27 pts.) and other disorders (4 pts.). Frequency of self-disorders was different among the 4 groups. Including patients schizotypal personality disorder in the schizophrenia-spectrum disorder group, the difference is still significant. Mann-Whitney U test shows no differences between EOP and UHR patients in SD. Furthermore, correlations between EASE total score and Calgary and MASC total scores were significant. CONCLUSIONS: Our results confirm the specificity of SDs for schizophrenia spectrum disorders and also the belonging of schizotypal personality disorder to schizophrenia-spectrum.