Article Summary: Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia

Article Summary: Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia

In the article, Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia, the authors focused on assessing the magnitude of the theory of mind or mentalising and analysing the associated factors as they relate to schizophrenia. According to the author, the theory of mind or mentalizing refers to the cognitive ability usually associated with attributing mental states like beliefs and intentions to people, which allows an individual to be able to manipulate, explain, and predict behavior. The theory of mind and its relationship with schizophrenia was proposed by Frith in 1992, whereby he argued that mentalizing impairment could help in explaining various symptoms of schizophrenia. The proposed theory by Frith resulted in substantial research undertaken with the conclusion of these studies showing that the theory of mind is impaired in individuals with schizophrenia (Sprong et al., 2007). As such, the article focused on performing a meta-analysis that assesses the magnitude of the mentalizing deficit and the associated factors. 

As a meta-analysis study, the authors relied on secondary data; thus, they performed an intensive literature search on electronic databases such as EMBASE, Medline, and PsycINFO. The literature search was limited to literature material published between January 1993 and May 2006. The study had specific keywords that were used in the search, and also had an inclusion criteria that the literature found had to meet for it to be included in the article. Following this process, the authors were able to identify twenty-nine studies focusing on mentalising in schizophrenia that was used in the article to estimate the overall effect size. The authors of the article used the weighted regression-analysis technique to assess or analyze descriptors of the study that were likely to influence effect size (Sprong et al., 2007). The article also performed separate analyses for the identified subgroups of symptoms and types of mentalizing tasks. 

The analysis performed on the collected data in the article revealed that the overall effect size was relatively large and statistically significant. According to the article, the overall effect size from a sample of over 1500 participants created from the 29 studies was -1.1255, which is considered significantly large based on a widely used appraising convention for the magnitude of effect sizes (Sprong et al., 2007). The results also showed that the sample characteristics did not have a significant impact on the estimated overall effect size. In this case, the article notes that the moderator variable, which were IQ, gender, and age, had no notable or significant impact on the average effect size; thus, implying that the theory of mind was robust and not easily moderated by irrelevant variables. Consequently, the analysis of the symptom subgroups revealed significant mentalising impairment in all the subgroups. However, the magnitude of mentalising impairment was most notable and significantly more among the participants with symptoms of disorganization compared to the other subgroups of symptoms (Sprong et al., 2007). Based on these results, the study concluded that mentalising impairment or deficit in schizophrenia was stable and significant. Considering that the findings of the study revealed that patients in remission tend to also be impaired offers support to the theory of mind or the suggestion that mentalising impairment is a possible trait marker for schizophrenia. However, the article identified two key limitations in the study. The first limitation was the exclusion of studies that used less common types of theory of mind tasks. The second limitation was the subgroups of symptoms categorizing approach that the authors employed. From this perspective, the article notes that its limitations and results can be used to guide future researchers in undertaking studies focusing on mentalizing process and schizophrenia.
    

References

Sprong, M., Schothorst, P., Vos, E., Hox, J., & Van  Engeland, H. (2007). Theory of Mind in Schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 191, 5-13.