Introduction: Despite the large number of scales to assess cognitive function, these are rarely used in clinical practice, both because of the time they require and because they do not give useful information to the clinician. The aim of this article is to present the characteristics and psychometric properties of a scale which aims, with its simplicity of use and design, to be of use in the clinical practice for measuring social cognition in psychosis.
Methods: The new GEOPTE Scale gathers information from two sources: the patient's subjective perception of his/her deficits and that of the informant or caregiver. It consists of 15 items (7 for basic cognitive functions and 8 for social cognition). The scale was applied to 87 patients with a diagnosis of psychosis (according to DSM-IV), and general clinical data, clinical global impression, mood and degree of insight were gathered.
Results: The GEOPTE Scale presented excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.84 for patient and 0.87 for informants). Factorial analysis identified two factors which explained a total variance of 39%. The first factor was related to the basic cognitive function items and the second to the social cognition items. Regarding the validity of the construct, the scores on the scale are closely related to clinical global impression, degree of insight and depressive symptoms.
Conclusions: The GEOPTE Scale for measuring social cognition in psychosis has an excellent psychometric behavior both in the degree of internal consistency and in correlation with clinical global variables, mood and degree of insight.