Benefits of social contact in individuals with psychotic symptoms: do closeness of the contact and empathic skills make the difference?
Open accessAbstract
Objectives: Social contact is known to be beneficial for humans’ mental health. Individuals with psychotic symptoms (PS) tend to show poorer social and interpersonal functioning. However, in this patient population, social contact may be crucial for their mental wellbeing and treatment success. Additionally, closeness of social contact (familiar versus less familiar others), rather than only the presence or absence of social contacts, may play an important role. Empathy may heighten the beneficial effects of social/close contact on mental health, facilitating interactions. We investigated the association between social contact and closeness of contact on mental health, defined as positive symptoms, positive affect and negative affect in PS and control participants, with empathy as a moderator. Methods: Participants were 16–30 years old. Information regarding social/close contact and mental health was obtained using the experience sampling method in individuals with PS (n = 29) and healthy controls (n = 28). Empathy was measured using a self-report questionnaire. Results: Social contact was associated with higher positive affect in the total sample. Contact with close as opposed to less close others was related to better mental health: It was associated with lower positive symptoms in the PS group, and with more positive affect in the total sample. Empathy moderated the association between closeness of contact and positive affect in the total sample, in which the combination of higher levels of empathy combined with the presence of close contact was associated with higher positive affect in the total sample. However, the direct association between empathy and positive affect was not significant per group of contact. Conclusion: The results suggest that social contact, but especially contact with a close other is important for mental health outcomes: Contact with close others is beneficial for positive affect in the total sample and for positive symptoms in individuals with PS.
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A strong therapeutic alliance is an essential ingredient for treatment success.
“Lastly, our intervention was supposed to support patients’ recovery by providing positive social support and with this foster peer group relationships, and a strong therapeutic alliance found to be essential ingredients for treatment success (132, 133).”
From Developing a mechanism-based therapy for acute psychiatric inpatients with psychotic symptoms: an Intervention Mapping approach (2023) · cites this paper as [132]
The Discussion (page unavailable) links contact with close friends or family to better outcomes in people with psychotic symptoms, but does not address the therapeutic alliance between patient and clinician. Searches for “therapeutic alliance treatment success” and “therapeutic relationship alliance therapy effectiveness” found no passage supporting the claimed essential role in treatment success. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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- Authors
- Krijnen, L. J. G., Lemmers-Jansen, I. L. J., Fett, A.-K. J., & Krabbendam, L.
- Affiliations
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- City, University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Krijnen, Lisa J. G.
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-12-16
- Volume
- 12
- Pages
- 769091-769091
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8716939
- OpenAlex
- W4200389546
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 1.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- City Research Online (City University London) (acceptedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Hersenstichting (KS2011(1)-75)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Keywords
- social contact, psychotic symptoms, empathy, positive affect, negative affect, positive symptoms, mental health, interpersonal functioning, young adults, moderating effect
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