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24th European Congress of Psychiatry / European Psychiatry 33S (2016) S56–S71

S69

Objectives

The objectives were to investigate how this research

tool can be implemented for detecting suicide risk in depressed

patients.

Aims

The aims were to find a base for the objective test of electro-

dermal reactivity to be used as support in suicidal risk assessments

in depressed patients.

Methods

More than ten published studies on electrodermal

hyporeactivity and suicide were reviewed subsequent to the appli-

cation of an untraditional statistical approach. Gender, age,

subdiagnoses and depressive depth were considered. All subjects

were tested in a habituation experiment of the electrodermal

response to a moderately strong tone stimulus.

Results

The percentage of electrodermally hyporeactive

depressed patients who later committed suicide was 86–97%.

The percentage of electrodermally reactive patients that did not

commit suicide was 96–98%. Hyporeactivity seems to be stable in

at least 1–2 years in remission.

Conclusions

It was considered favorable to test for hyporeactivity

as early as possible, i.e. already in the primary care. That enables

right treatment of right patients very early. The number of referrals

to psychiatric specialists could be expected to decrease. Possible

causes of hyporeactivity begin to be revealed, giving ideas of several

treatment approaches.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration

of competing interest.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.976

The assessment of negative symptoms:

Achievements and perspectives

W43

Self-assessment instruments:

Development and validation

S. Dollfus

CHU de Caen, Department of psychiatry, Caen, France

Introduction

Negative symptoms are found in many patients

with schizophrenia, but their assessment remains delicate. Stan-

dardized assessments are therefore needed to facilitate their

identification. Many tools have been developed but most of them

are assessments based on observer rating. Nevertheless, patient

subjective evaluation can provide an additional outcome measure

and allow patients to be more engaged in their treatment. There-

fore, the aim of this study is to present past and recent tools

assessing the subjective experience of negative symptoms; we will

particularly focus on a novel tool, the Self-evaluation of Negative

Symptoms (SNS).

Methods

Forty-nine patients with schizophrenia and schizoaf-

fective disorders (DSMIV) were evaluated in order to demonstrate

three components of the scale’s validity: face and content validities

and reliability.

Results

Cronbach’s coefficient showed good internal consistency.

Factor analysis extracted 2 factors (apathy and emotional). SNS was

significantly correlated with the Scale of Assessment of Negative

Symptoms and the Clinician Global Impression on severity of neg-

ative symptoms supporting good convergent validity. SNS scores

were not correlated with level of insight, Parkinsonism, or with

BPRS positive sub-scores in favor of good discriminant validity.

Intra-subject reliability of SNS revealed excellent intraclass corre-

lation coefficients.

Conclusion

This study shows good psychometric properties of

SNS as well as quite satisfactory acceptance by patients. It also

demonstrates the ability of patients with schizophrenia to accu-

rately report their own experience. Self-assessments of negative

symptoms should be usedmore in clinical practice since theymight

allow patients with schizophrenia to develop appropriate coping

strategies.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration

of competing interest.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.977

W44

Evolution of negative symptom

assessment instruments

M.P. García-Portilla Gonzalez

University of Oviedo, Psychiatry, Oviedo, Spain

In this talk we will review the psychometric evolution of available

instruments for assessing the negative syndrome of schizophrenia,

describing their strengths and weaknesses.

Current instruments were classified into two categories accord-

ing to their content validity and assessment approach as first- or

second-generation instruments. The BPRS, SANS, the SENS and the

PANSS belong to the first generation while the BNSS, the CAINS

and the MAP-SR belong to the second generation. The NSA can

be considered a transitional instrument between the two. First-

generation instruments have more content validity problems than

second-generation instruments do, as they do not accurately reflect

the currently accepted negative syndrome (they do not include all

negative symptoms and signs or they include symptoms fromother

dimensions). They also have more problems relative to the use

of behavioral referents instead of internal experiences of deficits

when assessing symptoms, which may lead to measuring function-

ing instead of negative symptoms.

Further research needs to be done in this area in order to ensure the

evaluation of primary negative symptoms and internal experiences

involved in negative symptoms rather than external behaviors.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration

of competing interest.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.978

W45

Assessment of negative symptoms

beyond schizophrenia

S. Kaiser

Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Department of Psychiatry,

Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Zurich, Switzerland

Introduction

Negative symptoms have long been recognized as

a hallmark of schizophrenia. Newer evidence suggests that nega-

tive symptoms can be observed in persons with other disorders or

even innon-clinical populations. However, most negative symptom

scales are designed to identify clinically relevant symptoms, which

might lead to underappreciation of subclinical symptom expres-

sion.

Objectives

The aim of the present study was to establish distri-

butional properties of well-established negative symptom scales in

comparison with the newly developed Zurich Negative Symptom

Scale, which employs a fully dimensional and continuous approach.

Methods

We included participants with established schizophre-

nia (

n

= 65), first-episode psychosis (

n

= 25), schizotypal personality

traits (

n

= 29) and remitted bipolar disorder (

n

= 20). Assessment

of negative symptoms was conducted with the Zurich Negative

Symptom Scale and compared to establish rating scales.

Results

In this broad sample, measurement of negative symp-

toms with established negative symptom scales lead to a highly

skewed distribution. In other words, established negative symptom

scales were able to identify negative symptoms in some partici-

pants in the non-schizophrenia spectrum, but a differentiation of

negative symptom severity in the subclinical range was not possi-

ble. In contrast, the distribution of negative symptoms measured

with the Zurich Negative Symptom scale approached normality.