J Korean Neuropsychiatr Assoc.  2008 Sep;47(5):503-511.

Relationship between the Level of Insight and Memory Distortion about the First Admission in Patients with Schizophrenia

• Choi S
• Park IH
• Kim JJ

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to test the hypothesis that the level of current insight in patients with schizophrenia may affect autobiographical memory about their previous psychiatric history.
METHODS
28 patients with schizophrenia were interviewed with a newly designed questionnaire to report their memories about symptoms and situations during the first psychiatric admission. The subjects' memory reports were compared with their medical records. The error ratio was compared between the good and poor insight groups.
RESULTS
The poor insight group demonstrated less true responses and more miss responses to the question about the existence of delusion, and more miss responses to the questions about the details of the hallucination than the good insight group. The insight level was correlated with miss ratio of the responses to questions about details of delusion.
CONCLUSION
These results suggest that poor current insight in patients with schizophrenia may be related to larger distortion of autobiographical memories about certain symptoms of theirs.

Keyword

Memory distortion; Autobiographical memory; Insight; Schizophrenia

MeSH Terms

Delusions
Hallucinations
Humans
Medical Records
Memory
Memory, Episodic
Surveys and Questionnaires
Schizophrenia