Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation

描述(由申请人提供)：本申请是对NIMH战略计划的战略3.2的响应，该战略要求开发可用于临床评估和干预研究的标准化的功能结果测量方法。这一目标将通过对关键的社会认知领域达成共识定义，并开发可用于在涉及精神分裂症患者的各种类型治疗研究中评估这些领域的心理测量方法来实现。社会认知是一套认知过程，涉及个体对社会信息的理解和反应。精神分裂症患者的社会认知能力与功能性的、现实的社会结果密切相关，社会认知越来越被视为可行的治疗目标。因此，当务之急是制定敏感的和心理测量学上合理的措施，以进行准确的评估。拟议项目的第一阶段将对该领域的专家进行广泛调查，以确定社会认知的核心领域和评估每个领域的当前任务(具体目标1)。然后，一个精心挑选的较小的专家小组成员将聚集在一起，使用兰德公司先前开发的并在之前的大规模精神健康评估研究中使用的共识达成程序来评估每个确定的领域和任务。该小组将就最相关的社会认知领域达成共识，并在每个领域中选出最有希望的任务，以供进一步研究和发展(具体目标2)。然后，这些候选措施将被汇编成一个综合的组合，并在两个不同的地点(迈阿密大学和南方卫理公会大学)对精神分裂症患者和健康对照的大样本进行管理。将利用数据评估每项任务的可靠性和效度特征(具体目标3)。这项心理测量学研究的数据将与一个科学咨询小组分享，以评估结果。其他有希望的、表现出不足特点的候选措施随后将被修改并进行试点测试，以确保修改的成功(具体目标4)。最后，将进行三个地点的验证研究(以增加调查结果的概括性)，以确定最终措施的心理测量学特性(具体目标5)。该项目这一部分的数据还将被用来系统地检查这些完善的社会认知措施与功能成果各方面之间的关系。该项目的结果将产生一个统一的社会认知定义，这将指导未来的研究，并开发心理测量学上健全的社会认知测量方法，这对评估心理社会和生物医学干预措施的有效性将是有价值的。 公共卫生相关性：精神分裂症是一种复杂的大脑疾病，包括在日常环境中发挥作用的能力严重受损，这显然与社会认知缺陷有关。基于经验和健全的工具是评估旨在改善社会认知障碍的干预措施结果的关键。这项拟议研究的目标是确定和改进现有的最佳社会认知措施，以便它们能够适当地应用于大规模治疗研究。该项目将就社会认知的关键要素达成共识，确定现有的最好的社会认知测量方法，收集新的数据以评估这些测量方法的心理测量学特征，修改它们以优化其效用，并收集额外的数据以基于大量和多样化的样本来确定最终测量方法的心理测量学特性，同时继续关注真实世界的功能结果和社会认知的作用，与神经认知和社会能力相比，用于预测现实世界的功能

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The present application is in response to Strategy 3.2 of the NIMH strategic plan, which requests the development of standardized measures of functional outcome that can be utilized in clinical assessment and intervention studies. This goal will be met by achieving a consensus definition of crucial social cognitive domains and developing psychometrically sound measures that can be used to assess these domains in various types of treatment research involving people with schizophrenia. Social cognition is a set of cognitive processes that are involved in how individuals understand and respond to social information. The social cognitive abilities of individuals with schizophrenia have been strongly linked to functional, real-world social outcomes, and social cognition is increasingly seen as a viable treatment target. It is therefore imperative that sensitive and psychometrically sound measures be developed for accurate assessment. The first phase of the proposed project will conduct an extensive survey of experts in the field to identify the core domains of social cognition and current tasks that assess each domain (Specific Aim 1). A carefully selected smaller group of expert panelists will then convene to evaluate each identified domain and task using consensus attainment procedures previously developed by the RAND Corporation and used in previous large-scale mental health assessment studies. The panel will reach a consensus on the most relevant domains of social cognition and select the most promising tasks within each domain for further study and development (Specific Aim 2). These candidate measures will then be compiled into a comprehensive battery and administered to a large sample of individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls at two different sites (University of Miami and Southern Methodist University). Data will be utilized to assess the reliability and validity characteristics of each task (Specific Aim 3). Data from this psychometric study will be shared with a scientific advisory group to evaluate the results. Otherwise promising candidate measures that show inadequate characteristics will then be modified and pilot tested to ensure the success of the modifications (Specific Aim 4). Finally, a three-site validation study (to increase the generalizability of the findings) will then be conducted to determine the psychometric properties of the final measures (Specific Aim 5). Data from this portion of the project will also be used to systematically examine the relationship between these refined social cognition measures and aspects of functional outcome. The findings of this project will yield a uniform definition of social cognition that will guide future research and develop psychometrically sound measures of social cognition that will be valuable in assessing the effectiveness of psychosocial and biomedical interventions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Schizophrenia is a complex brain disorder that includes significant impairments in the ability to function in everyday settings that are clearly related to social cognitive deficits. Empirically based and sound instrumentation is key to assessing the outcomes of interventions targeted to ameliorate social cognitive impairments. The goal of the proposed study is to identify and improve the best existing measures of social cognition so that they can be suitably applied in large-scale treatment studies. This project will develop consensus on the critical elements of social cognition, identify the best existing measures of social cognition, collect new data to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of these measures, modify them to optimize their utility, and collect additional data to determine the psychometric properties of the final measures based on a large and diverse sample, while focusing continuously on real-world functional outcomes and the role of social cognition, as compared to neurocognition and social competence, for the prediction of real-world functioning