The Attributional Style Questionnaire was given to three groups of 15 adult patients: a group of paranoid patients who were not depressed, a group of depressed patients who were not paranoid, and a group of patients who were both paranoid and depressed. As predicted, the paranoid patients manifested an attributional style opposite to that of the depressed patients: that is, they tended to attribute good events to themselves and bad events to others or to chance, whereas the depressed patients tended to attribute bad events to themselves and good events to others or to chance. These findings confirm those of Kaney & Bentall (1989). The patients who were both paranoid and depressed fell in between the two other groups with respect to their attributions of good events but did not differ from the paranoid group in their attributions of bad events. In addition, differences among groups were manifest with respect to self-esteem, delusional content and suicidal ideation. The implications of these findings for therapy are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to utilize factor analysis to help determine whether anhedonia is a symptom of both depression and schizophrenia. Measures of depression, positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, and anhedonia were administered to a group of schizophrenic patients (N = 54) and to a group of patients with major depressive disorder (N = 27). The correlation matrix among the various scales was subjected to an oblique exploratory factor analysis. Three factors were extracted, accounting for three quarters of the variance. The first measured depression, the second measured positive symptoms, and the third measured negative symptoms. Anhedonia loaded significantly on the first factor but not on the third, suggesting that it is a symptom of depression rather than schizophrenia. These results were corroborated by means of confirmatory factor analysis. We conclude that anhedonia is a symptom of depression and that it only appears to be a symptom of schizophrenia because it is a component of emotional blunting which is indeed a negative symptom of schizophrenia.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract