Specific skills and social competence in schizophrenia

Generalization of skills is a major problem in social skills training for schizophrenic patients. Assessment of skills is mostly not based on objective indices of specific skill deficits. The results of this study show that global competence of schizophrenics can be differentiated from specific competence. Global competence was found to be related to symptoms, whereas specific competence was not. No support was found for the assumption that social dysfunctions are caused by negative symptoms. Social perception and positive symptoms did explain a substantial part of the variance of global competence. It is therefore concluded that neither global incompetence nor negative symptoms should be used as an indication for social skills training.