Loneliness is associated with mentalizing and emotion recognition abilities in schizophrenia, but only in a cluster of patients with social cognitive deficits.

Abstract

Objective: Loneliness is a concern for patients with schizophrenia. However, the correlates of loneliness in patients with schizophrenia are unclear; thus, the aim of the study is to investigate neuro- and social cognitive mechanisms associated with loneliness in individuals with schizophrenia.

Method: Data from clinical, neurocognitive, and social cognitive assessments were pooled from two cross-national samples (Poland/USA) to examine potential predictors of loneliness in 147 patients with schizophrenia and 103 healthy controls overall. Furthermore, the relationship between social cognition and loneliness was explored in clusters of patients with schizophrenia differing in social cognitive capacity.

Results: Patients reported higher levels of loneliness than healthy controls. Loneliness was linked to increased negative and affective symptoms in patients. A negative association between loneliness and mentalizing and emotion recognition abilities was found in the patients with social-cognitive impairments, but not in those who performed at normative levels.

Conclusions: We have elucidated a novel mechanism which may explain previous inconsistent findings regarding the correlates of loneliness in individuals with schizophrenia.