Validation of the Norwegian version of the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Hellvin, T., Sundet, K.,Vaskinn, A., Simonsen, C.,Ueland, T., Andreassen, O.A. & Melle, I. (2010). Validation of the Norwegian version of the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 51, 525–533. Studies of social functioning in severe mental disorders are disadvantaged by the multitude of different assessment instruments in use. The present study aims to establish reliability and validity of the Norwegian version of the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) and to examine social functioning in bipolar disorder (BD) compared to schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls (HC). SFS, a 76 item questionnaire divided into seven subscales measuring various aspects of daily life functioning, was administered to samples diagnosed with BD (n = 100) or SZ (n = 100) and to HC (n = 100), recruited from the ongoing Tematic Organized Psychosis (TOP) study. Reliability analyses prove adequate psychometric properties both for the composite full scale score (α: 0.81) as well as for the seven subscale scores (α: 0.60–0.88). Principal component analysis of the subscales confirms a one‐component structure, explaining 59% of the variance. Although significantly correlated with the Global Assessment of Functioning, our results indicate that the SFS measures different aspects of social functioning, is less influenced by demographic and clinical characteristics, but differentiates at the same time significantly BD from SZ. Thus, SFS adds valuable information as a supplement to standard clinician‐rated assessment tools of social functioning, suited both for research and clinical work.     

Differentiating between ADHD sub-types on CCPT measures of sustained attention and vigilance

The aim of the study was to test whether sustained attention and vigilance, often considered as the same phenomenon, dissociate on the Conners' Continuous Performance Test, and whether subjects with ADHD-Inattentive type and ADHD-Combined type differ with regard to these measures. Sixty-five healthy controls and 67 subjects with ADHD between 9 and 16 years of age participated in the study. The ADHD-I group performed below control children on Hit Reaction Time Block Change, considered to measure sustained attention and the ADHD-C group scored below controls on Hit Reaction Time Inter-Stimulus-Interval, considered to measure vigilance. Comparing the two clinical groups showed a test by group interaction, with ADHD-I subjects performing below ADHD-C subjects with regard to sustained attention and above ADHD-C subjects with regard to vigilance. Sustained attention on the CCPT correlated specifically with parent and teacher ratings of inattention, but not with ratings of hyperactivity-impulsivity, while vigilance correlated with all symptom ratings.