The relationship between self-esteem and psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia: A longitudinal study

The relationship between self-esteem and psychotic symptoms is unclear. We have conducted a secondary analysis of an 18-month study of 66 people with schizophrenia to investigate the longitudinal relationship between self-esteem and psychotic symptoms. We investigated associations between positive and negative psychotic symptoms and self-esteem at baseline, after controlling for the effect of mood and other covariates using multiple regression. We then investigated the relationship between change in symptom measures and change in self-esteem. We found ideas of grandeur significantly associated with self-esteem at baseline. In the longitudinal regression analysis we found that a reduction in severity of negative symptoms was significantly associated with improvement in self-esteem (and vice versa). These findings have therapeutic implications.