Abstract
Objective
The main aims of this study were to examine the differences in the Emotional Intelligence (EI), the emotional domain of social cognition (SC), between euthymic patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and healthy controls (HC) and to evaluate the contribution of sociodemographic, clinical and neuropsychological variables to EI.
Methods
We recruited 202 patients with BD and 50 HC. EI was evaluated using the Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). The sociodemographic, clinical and neurocognitive variables that showed a significant association with EI were entered into hierarchical multiple regression analysis.
Results
BD patients obtained significantly lower scores compared to HC in the Emotional Intelligence quotient (EIQ) and in the Understanding Emotions branch score. The best fitting model for the variables associated with EI in the patients group was a linear combination of gender, estimated IQ, family history of affective diagnosis and executive function. The model, including these previous variables, explained up to 27.6% of the observed variance (R2=0.276, F(1,170):16.406, P<0.001).
Conclusions
The identification of variables associated with deficit in EI, such as male gender, lower estimated IQ, and lower executive function performance, may help in selecting treatment targets to improve SC, and especially EI, in patients with BD.
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