Deficits in social perception in opioid maintenance patients, abstinent opioid users and non-opioid users

摘要

Aims: This study aimed to compare emotion perception and social inference in opioid maintenance patients with abstinent ex-users and non-heroin-using controls, and determine whether any deficits in could be accounted for by cognitive deficits and/or risk factors for brain damage. Design: Case-control. Setting: Sydney, Australia. Participants: A total of 125 maintenance patients (MAIN), 50 abstinent opiate users (ABST) and 50 matched controls (CON). Measurements: The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) was used to measure emotion perception and social inference. Measures were also taken of executive function, working memory, information processing speed, verbalon-verbal learning and psychological distress. Findings: After adjusting for age, sex, pre-morbid IQ and psychological distress, the MAIN group was impaired relative to CON (??=-0.19, P<0.05) and ABST (??=-0.19, P<0.05) on emotion perception and relative to CON (??=-0.25, P<0.001) and ABST (??=-0.24, P<0.01) on social inference. In neither case did the CON and ABST groups differ. For both emotion perception (P<0.001) and social inference (P<0.001), pre-morbid IQ was a significant independent predictor. Cognitive function was a major predictor of poor emotion perception (??=-0.44, P<0.001) and social inference (??=-0.48, P<0.001). Poor emotion recognition was also predicted by number of heroin overdoses (??=-0.14, P<0.05). Neither time in treatment or type of maintenance medication (methadone or buprenorphine) were related to performance. Conclusions: People in opioid maintenance treatment may have an impaired capacity for emotion perception and ability to make inferences about social situations. ? 2012 Society for the Study of Addiction.