Assessment of real-world daily-living skills in early-onset schizophrenia trough the Life Skills Profile scale

Abstract

Background: Adolescents with early-onset schizophrenia (EOS) have marked deficits in their functional outcome. However, few short and reliable instruments for assessing real-world functioning have been specifically validated in EOS. The Life Skills Profile (LSP) is a brief scale widely used in schizophrenia and considered one of the optimal instruments for assessing real-world daily living skills. The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness and the feasibility of the LSP to assess daily living skills in EOS.

Methods: The sample included 53 clinically and pharmacologically stabilized adolescent patients with EOS and 53 healthy adolescents. Content review of the scale and internal consistency analysis were conducted in the EOS group. A subgroup of 30 patients was re-assessed over a 10-day interval to establish the test-retest reliability. Measures of functional outcome were used to assess convergent validity, and measures of intelligence and symptoms were used to assess divergent validity. Discriminant validity was analyzed through logistic analysis and the receiver-operating characteristic curve.

Results: The LSP and its subscales showed high reliability, adequate internal consistency and adequate convergent and divergent validity. The LSP was also found to be a sensitive instrument for detecting differences between patients and healthy adolescents, correctly classifying 84% of the sample. The estimated area under the curve was 0.925 (95% CI 0.875-0.976).

Conclusions: The LSP showed adequate psychometric characteristics in adolescents with EOS and appeared to be a valid, reliable and time-efficient instrument for use in clinical practice and research settings to assess real-world daily-living skills in EOS.