Daily Functioning in Schizophrenia: Is There Room for Anxiety?

The present study aims at evaluating the impact of anxiety on functional outcome in patients with schizophrenia, also taking into account the other main predictors of functioning identified by literature, to disentangle specific subcomponents which contribute to functional outcome. One hundred five patients with DSM-IV-TR schizophrenia were recruited and underwent a broad functional, psychopathological, and clinical-neuropsychological battery. A forward stepwise regression model was used to assess the predictive effect of anxiety and other factors on daily functioning, showing significant results only for global neurocognitive status and anxiety. These results confirm the role of neurocognition and are also in line with the hypothesis that trait anxiety has a direct impact on functional outcome. Overall, the findings support the role of anxiety as a core feature of schizophrenia pathology, with important implications for both research and clinical settings.