Blindness of intentions and metacognitive deficits during moral judgements in schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has shown that moral judgments are affected by social cognitive abilities, such as theory of mind (ToM). This study examines how information about an actor's beliefs and the consequences of their actions affect the moral evaluation of the character's behavior in social events. Our research builds upon previous studies, which have shown that these factors contribute differently to moral judgments made by both adults and young children. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore how participants with schizophrenia and healthy controls read stories about social situations in the context of moral judgments. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study used the research procedure that included 4 variants of 16 scenarios describing social situations, and thus comprising 64 stories. After each story, participants evaluated their confidence level on a 4-point scale. To assess delusional beliefs, the Polish adaptation of the Peters Delusion Inventory (PDI) questionnaire and the Paranoia Checklist (PCh) were used. Respondents completed these questionnaires after completing the scenario test procedure. RESULTS: In social situations, patients with paranoid schizophrenia were found to evaluate actions of protagonists who attempted to harm another person more leniently than when it was an accident. Conversely, healthy individuals judged those actors who expressed intentions to hurt another person significantly more harshly than in an accident situation. Metacognition measures show that paranoid schizophrenia patients make moral judgments with high confidence, despite being based on an incorrect reading of the other person's intentions. CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates that ToM has a significant impact on the moral judgment of others. Decreased moral cognition can result from both positive and negative symptoms. Deficits related to metacognition can also sustain such cognitive distortions.

Cognition and Frailty in Patients With Heart Failure: A Systematic Review of the Association Between Frailty and Cognitive Impairment.

Background/Aim: Pathological processes associated with aging increase the risk of cognitive deficits. Frailty syndrome may significantly accelerate these pathological processes in elderly patients with heart failure. The objective of this review was to better understand the association between frailty syndrome and co-occurring cognitive decline in patients with heart failure. Methods: We conducted a systematic review based on PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, EMBASE, and CINAHL as databases. The search followed the method described by Webb and Roe. For inclusions, the studies were selected employing cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. The included studies had to evaluate frailty syndrome and cognitive impairments among participants with heart failure. As we were interested in older adults, the search was limited to individuals >65 years of age. The search was limited to primary research articles written in English published since the year 2000. Results: Of the 1,245 studies retrieved by the systematic review, 8 relevant studies were enclosed for the full-text review. Our review revealed that most studies of patients with HF demonstrated evidence of an association between greater frailty and cognitive impairment. In particular, six studies reported evidence for the significant association between higher levels of frailty and cognitive impairment in patients with heart failure. The remaining two studies failed to find an association between frailty and cognitive impairment. Conclusions: The development of frailty and cognitive impairment in heart failure is particularly important because this cardiovascular disease is a common cause of both morbidity and mortality in the world. The results of this review fill the existing gap in the literature related to the identification of clinical factors linked with frailty syndrome that contribute to cognitive impairment in patients with a diagnosis of heart failure. The prevalence of overlapping frailty and cognitive impairment in patients with heart failure, therefore, necessitates a routine assessment of these components in the care of patients with cardiovascular disease.

Mindreading and metacognition patterns in patients with borderline personality disorder: experimental study.

Current psychopathology attempts to understand personality disorders in relation to deficits in higher cognition such as mindreading and metacognition. Deficits in mindreading are usually related to limitations in or a complete lack of the capacity to understand and attribute mental states to others, while impairments in metacognition concern dysfunctional control and monitoring of one's own processes. The present study investigated dysfunctional higher cognition in the population of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) by analyzing the accuracy of metacognitive judgments in a mindreading task [reading the mind in the eyes Test (RMET)] and a subsequent metacognitive task based on self-report scales: a confidence rating scale (CR) versus a post-decision wagering scale (PDW). It turned out that people from the BPD group scored lower in the RMET. However, both groups had the same levels of confidence on the PDW scale when giving incorrect answers in the RMET test. As initially hypothesized, individuals with BPD overestimated their confidence in incorrect answers, regardless of the type of metacognitive scales used. The present findings indicate that BPD individuals show dysfunctional patterns between instances of mindreading and metacognition.

Assessment of Frailty and Occurrence of Anxiety and Depression in Elderly Patients with Atrial Fibrillation.

PURPOSE: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, and its incidence increases with age. The elderly population is commonly affected by frailty syndrome (FS). FS syndrome along with anxiety and depressive symptoms are prevalent among elderly patients with AF. It is unclear whether depression contributes to AF or vice versa. The purpose of this study was to assess correlations between FS and the occurrence of anxiety and depression symptoms in a group of elderly patients with AF. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 100 elderly patients (69 females, 31 males, mean age: 70.27 years) with AF. Standardized research instruments were used including the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) to assess FS, and two questionnaires to assess depression including the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS). RESULTS: Mild FS was found in 38% and moderate FS in 29% of patients. Based on GDS scores, depression symptoms were found in 51% of patients' sample. Based on HADS scores, 20% of patients were found to have anxiety symptoms, and 28% revealed depression symptoms. Single-factor analysis demonstrated a significant positive correlation between HADS anxiety symptoms (r=0.492), HADS depression symptoms (r=0.696), and GDS score (r=0.673) on the one hand, and overall TFI frailty score on the other. Multiple-factor analysis identified overall GDS score, education, and lack of bleeding as significant independent predictors of TFI scores (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: FS is common in the population of elderly patients with AF. We found evidence for the association between symptoms of anxiety and depression and the incidence of FS in this group of patients. Due to the risk of consequences which may in part be irreversible, screening for FS is recommended.