The Relationship of Insight Level with Temperament and Character Pattern in Patients with Chronic Male Schizophrenia

Kang, Yeo Hwa; Kim, Bong Jo; Sohn, Jin Wook

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study was conducted to investigate the relationship of insight level with temperament and character pattern in chronic male schizophrenics. In addition, we tried to examine demographic variables and illness-related variables which may affect the level of insight.
METHODS
To assess insight level by psychiatrists, Insight and Treatment Attitudes Question-naire(ITAQ), Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder(SUMD) were applied. Temperament and character patterns were evaluated by the Korean version of Cloninger's self-rated Temperament and Character Inventory(TCI). The authors investigated the correlations between insight level, and scores of temperament and character dimensions. Data on the demographic and illness-related variabres for the subjects were gathered from hospital records and clinical interviews. A total of 113 patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV criteria was analyzed. The insight level was dichotomized into good(median value of 11) and poor insight group(<11).
RESULTS
1) There was a significant difference between good insightgroup and poor insight group in novelty seeking dimension in TCI. 2) There was a significant negative correlation between novelty seeking scores by TCI and insight scores by ITAQ(rs:Spearman correlation coefficient=-0.20, p<0.05). There was a positive correlation between harm avoidance scores by TCI and insight scores by ITAQ(rs=0.22, p<0.05). 3) Significant differences between good and poor insight groups were identified in diverse clinical variables such as age at onset of illness, mode of hospitalization, duration of illness, current length of stay, and dosage of drug.
CONCLUSION
The results suggest that high scores in the temperament dimension of novelty seeking and low scores in the temperament dimension of harm avoidance may influence poor insight in patients with chronic male schizophrenia. Therefore it is clinically valuable for us to assess the pattern of temperament at the stage of insight evaluation. The authors suggest that further studies on temperament and character in schizophrenia is needed.