Relationship Between Self -Concept Clarity, and Positive and Negative Symptoms among Patients with Schizophrenia

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

1 Psychiatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University

2 Psychiatric Nursing and Mental Health, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University.

Abstract

Background: Self-concept clarity indicates the extent to which beliefs about the self are clearly and 
confidently defined, internally consistent, and stable over time. Disturbances in the perception 
of self are thought to be central to the development of psychosis. A growing body of research reflects 
that the incoherence or disorganization in sense of self in schizophrenia may mask individuals from 
perceiving reality accurately and perceive themselves as if they lost contact to themselves and spent a 
lot of time wondering about the kind of person they are. Objective: So the aim of this study was to 
assess the self- concept clarity, as well as positive and negative symptoms among patients with
schizophrenia. And, to identify the relationship between self- concept clarity and both positive and 
negative symptoms among patients with schizophrenia. Settings: The study was conducted at ELMaamoura Hospital for Psychiatric Medicine, in Alexandria, Egypt. Subjects: the data was collected 
from 200 in patients with schizophrenia . Tools: three tools were used to collect the date; sociodemographic and clinical structured interview schedule , The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRSversion 4.0) and the Self-Concept Clarity Scale . Results: Findings of the present study revealed that 
around half of the studied sample demonstrated low self-concept clarity (50.5%). Whereas, 38.5% of 
the studied subjects had moderate self-concept clarity. Moreover, a statistically significant 
correlations were found between self-concept clarity in relation to positive and negative symptoms 
among the studied subjects. (rs= 0.242, P<0.001, and rs= 0.225, P=0.001, respectively). The overall 
brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) was proved to be the independent predictor of the self-concept 
clarity Conclusion: The present study concluded that the studied subjects demonstrated low selfconcept, and positive and negative symptoms was positively correlated with self-concept clarity 
.Recommendations : psychoeducational program for low concept clarity when dealing with patient 
with schizophrenia is need to develop clear, consistent and stable sense of self which would directly 
foster patients’ wellbeing and help in integration into the community.

Keywords

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics