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的回应，该战略计划要求开发可用于临床评估和干预研究的功能结果的标准化测量。这一目标将通过达成关键社会认知领域的共识定义和发展心理测量学上健全的措施来实现，这些措施可用于在涉及精神分裂症患者的各种类型的治疗研究中评估这些领域。社会认知是一组涉及个体如何理解和回应社会信息的认知过程。精神分裂症患者的社会认知能力与功能、现实世界的社会结果密切相关，社会认知越来越被视为一个可行的治疗目标。因此，必须制定敏感和心理计量学上合理的措施，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的调查，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，一个精心挑选的专家小组成员小组将召开会议，利用兰德公司以前制定的共识达成程序评估每个确定的领域和任务，并在以前的大规模心理健康评估研究中使用。小组将在社会认知最相关的领域达成共识，并在每个领域中选择最有前途的任务进行进一步的研究和发展（具体目标2）。然后，这些候选措施将被汇编成一个综合的系统，并在两个不同的地点（迈阿密大学和南卫理公会大学）对精神分裂症患者和健康对照者的大量样本进行管理。数据将用于评估每个任务的信度和效度特征（具体目标3）。这项心理测量研究的数据将与一个科学咨询小组共享，以评估结果。否则，有希望的候选措施显示不充分的特征，然后将进行修改和试点测试，以确保修改的成功（具体目标4）。最后，将进行三点验证研究（以增加研究结果的普遍性），以确定最终测量的心理测量特性（具体目标5）。该项目的这一部分数据还将用于系统地检查这些精细的社会认知测量与功能结果方面之间的关系。该项目的研究结果将产生社会认知的统一定义，这将指导未来的研究，并开发社会认知的心理测量学上的合理措施，这将对评估社会心理和生物医学干预的有效性有价值。

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.