The patients’ view

Abstract

The use and the choice of standardized assessment tools are necessary for improving identification of negative symptoms and for testing new efficient therapies. Most of the scales on negative symptoms are based on observer rating. Compared to these scales, self-assessments have been overlooked. Nevertheless, they are quite relevant since they are generally simple; they allow the patients to report their own symptoms and so are complementary to the evaluations based on observer ratings; they require the patient’s participation and so improve their involvement in the treatment; they are time-efficient and can be very useful for identification of negative symptoms at the onset of illness. Among the self-assessments, we can distinguish those designed and validated in patients with schizophrenia and others that can be used in schizophrenia while they have been validated in other populations. Among the first group, two recent scales have supplanted old scales, the Motivation and Pleasure Scale–Self-Report (MAP–SR) and the Self-evaluation of Negative Symptoms (SNS). The last one presents all the psychometric properties required. Among the second group, the most used scales are focused on anhedonia and apathy which assess these dimensions in schizophrenia but also in various psychiatric and neurological disorders; the most well-known are the Social Anhedonia Scale (SAS), the Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS), and more recently are, on the one hand, the Self-reported Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES-S) and on the other, the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) and the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS) which distinguish anticipation and consummatory pleasures.