Severe childhood trauma and emotion recognition in males and females with first-episode psychosis.

AIM: Childhood trauma increases social functioning deficits in first-episode psychosis (FEP) and is negatively associated with higher-order social cognitive processes such as emotion recognition (ER). We investigated the relationship between childhood trauma severity and ER capacity, and explored sex as a potential factor given sex differences in childhood trauma exposure.

METHODS

Eighty-three FEP participants (52 males, 31 females) and 69 nonclinical controls (49 males, 20 females) completed the CogState Research Battery. FEP participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. A sex × group (FEP, controls) ANOVA examined ER differences and was followed by two-way ANCOVAs investigating sex and childhood trauma severity (none, low, moderate, and severe) on ER and global cognition in FEP.

RESULTS

FEP participants had significantly lower ER scores than controls (p = .035). No significant sex × group interaction emerged for ER F(3, 147) = .496, p = .438 [95% CI = -1.20-0.57], partial η2  = .003. When controlling for age at psychosis onset, a significant interaction emerged in FEP between sex and childhood trauma severity F(3, 71) = 3.173, p = .029, partial η2  = .118. Males (n = 9) with severe trauma showed ER deficits compared to females (n = 8) (p = .011 [95% CI = -2.90 to -0.39]). No significant interaction was observed for global cognition F(3, 69) = 2.410, p = .074, partial η2  = .095.

CONCLUSIONS

These preliminary findings provide support for longitudinal investigations examining whether trauma severity differentially impacts ER in males and females with FEP.