| Summary: | Chapter One: Literature Review This chapter reviews the research surrounding the prevalence of comorbid social phobia in people diagnosed with schizophrenia. It then critically evaluates the eight studies that have specifically explored the relationships, if any, between social phobia and psychotic symptoms. The review surmises that the research findings are inconsistent, which seem to be attributable to methodological differences between all the studies in terms of participant selection, chronicity of psychotic symptoms and lack of consistent measures. Chapter Two: Research Report This study investigates attentional processing, the influence of social phobia and the ability to use Theory of Mind (ToM: the ability to infer other people's mental states and behaviour) in people diagnosed with their first episode of psychosis, when compared to healthy matched controls. The results showed that the first episode group attended towards negative evaluation, somatic sensations, physical threat, but not social situation word groups. Social phobia was highly prevalent in the first episode of psychosis cohort (37%) and this anxiety disorder was unrelated to psychotic symptoms. ToM processing was impaired in the first episode group. ToM was not related to social phobia symptoms, but was related to social functioning. Chapter Three: Critical Appraisal This section presents an overview of the experiences and personal reflections of the work that constitutes this thesis and includes the main personal learning points.
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