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Theory of mind in major depressive disorder: A meta-analysis

journal contribution
posted on 2016-02-01, 00:00 authored by E Bora, Michael BerkMichael Berk
OBJECTIVE: Social cognitive deficits can contribute to risk for depression and to psychosocial impairment during depression. However, available evidence suggests that emotion recognition is only marginally impaired in major depressive disorder (MDD). Recent studies have investigated theory of mind (ToM) abilities, a cognitively more demanding aspect of social cognition. METHODS: We conducted a meta-analysis of studies comparing ToM abilities in MDD and healthy controls. 18 studies comparing 613 patients with MDD and 529 healthy controls were included. RESULTS: MDD patients significantly underperformed healthy controls in ToM (d=0.51-0.58). ToM impairment in MDD was evident in response to different types of ToM tasks (verbal/visual and cognitive/affective and reasoning/decoding). ToM impairment was significantly related to severity of depressive symptoms. CONCLUSION: Theory of mind abilities are impaired during depression and can potentially contribute to psychosocial difficulties during depression. There is a need to investigate ToM abilities in different subtypes and stages of depression, especially in remitted patients.

History

Journal

Journal of Affective Disorders

Volume

191

Pagination

49-55

Location

Netherlands

ISSN

0165-0327

eISSN

1573-2517

Language

English

Publication classification

C Journal article, C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2016, Elsevier

Publisher

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