Psychiatric and non-psychiatric patients during the midst of Covid-19: Pandemic distress, psychosis and the belief in conspiracy theories.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increased levels of psychological distress in the general population, at the same time providing a perfect breeding ground for conspiracy beliefs. Psychiatric patients are considered as a population with an increased vulnerability for stressful events, and conspiracy beliefs show overlaps with paranoid ideations. The aim of the present study was to investigate if psychiatric patients experienced higher levels of pandemic distress than non-psychiatric patients, if they were more prone to conspiracy beliefs and if pandemic distress as well as other mental health variables were associated with believing in conspiracy theories. METHODS: Indicators for mental health (pandemic distress, depressive symptoms, general anxiety symptoms, perceived stress) and indicators for believing in conspiracy theories were assessed within psychiatric (n = 73) and non-psychiatric patients (n = 29) during the midst of the pandemic. RESULTS: Psychiatric patients reported higher levels of pandemic distress than non-psychiatric patients. Conspiracy measurements correlated positively with pandemic distress, but not with anxiety and depression. No differences were found between psychiatric patients with or without psychotic disorder and non-psychiatric patients in regard to conspiracy measurements. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest a higher susceptibility of psychiatric patients to pandemic distress, but not an increased level of believing in conspiracy theories. The common notion that people suffering from psychosis are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories was not supported. Furthermore, distress caused by a specific event and not anxiety per se seems to be related to the degree of conspiracy beliefs.

Auditory top-down control and affective theory of mind in schizophrenia with and without hallucinations.

Social cognitive impairments may represent a core feature of schizophrenia and above all are a strong predictor of positive psychotic symptoms. Previous studies could show that reduced inhibitory top-down control contributes to deficits in theory of mind abilities and is involved in the genesis of hallucinations. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between auditory inhibition, affective theory of mind and the experience of hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. In the present study, 20 in-patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls completed a social cognition task (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test) and an inhibitory top-down Dichotic Listening Test. Schizophrenia patients with greater severity of hallucinations showed impaired affective theory of mind as well as impaired inhibitory top-down control. More dysfunctional top-down inhibition was associated with poorer affective theory of mind performance, and seemed to mediate the association between impairment to affective theory of mind and severity of hallucinations. The findings support the idea of impaired theory of mind as a trait marker of schizophrenia. In addition, dysfunctional top-down inhibition may give rise to hallucinations and may further impair affective theory of mind skills in schizophrenia.