Application of the Sentence Completion for Events in the Future Test in evaluating episodic future thinking abilities in patients with schizophrenia / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the episodic future thinking in patients with schizophrenia from three per-spectives including the specificity,emotional valence,and content.Methods:Totally 25 patients with schizophrenia who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder,Fourth Edition (DSM-Ⅳ)criteria and 25 healthy controls matched with gender,age,and years of education participated in this study.The Sentence Completion for E-vents in the Future Test (SCEFT)was used to test episodic future thinking.Results:Schizophrenia patients showed deficits in episodic future thinking[(0.13 ±0.10)vs.(0.31 ±0.12),P <0.01].They had problems in imaging the specific events even after controlling for working memory and verbal memory [F(1,54)=6.60,P <0.05].More-over,they generated less positive events compared with the healthy controls [(0.36 ±0.20)vs.(0.48 ±0.16),P <0.01].As to the content,schizophrenia patients generated more events about hospitalization [0 (0,0.64)vs.0,P <0.01],more events that were unclassifiable [0.36 (0.09,0.64)vs.0.09 (0,0.36),P <0.01],and less events re-lated with personal career [0 (0,0.27)vs.0.18 (0,0.45),P <0.01].Conclusion:It suggests that schizophrenia patients show deficits in episodic future thinking.They have problems in imaging the specific events,and they have more negative thinking.