The following is a summary of “Emotional awareness for self and others and empathic abilities in clinical depression during acute illness and recovery,” published in the July 2024 issue of Psychiatry by Müller et al.

Researchers conducted a retrospective study determining patients with depression exhibited impaired emotional awareness, alongside investigating changes in cognitive and affective empathic abilities from illness to recovery.

They tested 58 patients diagnosed with depression upon admission and again after 6–8 weeks of inpatient psychiatric treatment. Additionally, a sample of 53 HCs was assessed at 2 points, spaced 6–8 weeks apart. Emotional awareness and empathic abilities were evaluated using the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Written texts were digitized and analyzed using geLEAS, an electronic scoring program for the German version of the LEAS.

The result showed that patients with depression exhibited higher levels of depressive symptoms compared to HCs initially, with symptoms decreasing by the second assessment. Throughout both assessments, individuals with depression consistently showed lower geLEAS self and lower scores for emotional awareness of others (geLEAS other) compared to HCs. Personal distress scores were also higher among patients with depression at both measured times. No group differences were observed in cognitive empathy scales (perspective taking and fantasy) or empathic concern at either time point, although empathic concern decreased significantly in patients with depression from the first to the second assessment. Additionally, empathic abilities measured by the IRI did not significantly correlate with emotional awareness towards others across the entire sample or within the patient and control subgroups.

Investigators concluded that patients with depression exhibited impaired emotional awareness of others and self, alongside normal cognitive empathic abilities but heightened self-focused affective empathy, which potentially influenced depressive vulnerability.

Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-024-05877-y