Validating Dimensions of Psychosis Symptomatology: Neural Correlates and 20-year Outcomes

摘要

Heterogeneity of psychosis presents significant challenges for classification. Between two and 12 symptom dimensions have been proposed, and consensus is lacking. The present study sought to identify uniquely informative models by comparing the validity of these alternatives. An epidemiologic cohort of 628 first-admission inpatients with psychosis was interviewed 6 times over two decades and completed an electrophysiological assessment of error processing at year 20. We first analyzed a comprehensive set of 49 symptoms rated by interviewers at baseline, progressively extracting from one to 12 factors. Next, we compared the ability of resulting factor solutions to (a) account for concurrent neural dysfunction and (b) predict 20-year role, social, residential, and global functioning, and life satisfaction. A four-factor model showed incremental validity with all outcomes, and more complex models did not improve explanatory power. The four dimensions—reality distortion, disorganization, inexpressivity, and apathy/asociality—were replicable in 5 follow-ups, internally consistent, stable across assessments, and showed strong discriminant validity. These results reaffirm the value of separating disorganization and reality distortion, are consistent with recent findings distinguishing inexpressivity and apathy/asociality, and suggest that these four dimensions are fundamental to understanding neural abnormalities and long-term outcomes in psychosis.