ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Schizophrenia
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1623147
Relationship between Negative Symptoms, Cognitive Function and Social Function in Schizophrenia: New Insight from A Network Analysis
Provisionally accepted
Renliang Cai1Zaochen Zhu1,2Yan Li1Jin Fang1Chaoran Wu1Yunshan Hu1Shaotong Zhang1
Chao Zhou1Xiandong Yang3
Xinyu Fang1
Xiangrong Zhang1*- 1Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
- 2Beijing Anding Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University Wuhu Hospital, Anhui, China
- 3The Third People’s Hospital of Qidong, Jiangsu, China
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Objective: This study aimed to investigate the complex relationships between negative symptoms, cognitive function, and social functioning in chronic male patients with schizophrenia, identifying core symptoms to lay a theoretical foundation for targeted interventions aimed at negative symptoms in this population. Methods: A total of 161 male schizophrenia patients were included, categorized into deficit syndrome (DS) and non-DS groups using the Chinese version of the Schedule for the Deficit Syndrome (SDS). Social functioning was assessed with the Scale of Social Function in Psychosis Inpatients (SSPI), while a battery of neurocognitive tests measured cognitive domains, including sustained attention, cognitive flexibility, ideation fluency, and visuospatial memory. Network analysis was employed to construct an integrated network of negative symptoms, cognitive function, and social functioning, aiming to identify the most central and bridge symptoms within these networks. Results: Our study indicated that DS patients performed worser in cognitive function and social functioning than non-DS patients. The network analysis demonstrated that "intensity of pleasure during activities (B1)" in the negative symptoms was the most central node. The most prominent bridge node was SSPI, with impact indices of 0.55. Conclusion: Our findings provided evidence revealing a closer connection between negative symptoms, cognitive function, and social functioning. In light of these findings, precise targets for pharmacological treatment, psychotherapy and physical therapy are identified for patients with schizophrenia.
Keywords: Schizophrenia, negative symptoms, Cognition, social function, Network analysis
Received: 05 May 2025; Accepted: 10 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cai, Zhu, Li, Fang, Wu, Hu, Zhang, Zhou, Yang, Fang and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiangrong Zhang, Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
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