Is anhedonia a specific dimension in chronic schizophrenia?

This article explores the relationships among anhedonia, depression, and sc hizophrenic symptomatology in chronic schizophrenia. To explore these relat ionships, factor analysis methods mere used to analyze the latent organizat ion of the variables. The Famcett Clark Pleasure Capacity Scale-Physical Pl easure (FCPCS-PP) and the abridged version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) mere completed by 150 subjects who met research diagnostic criteria for definite chronic schizophrenia. The schizophrenic symptomatology was ra ted using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Two separate ex ploratory principal components analyses were completed, followed by varimax rotation. The first was made on the correlation matrix comprising items fr om both the FCPCS-PP and PANSS and yielded a five-factor solution with virt ually no overlap of the significant factor loadings for the items from each scale. The second was made on the correlation matrix comprising items from both the FCPCS-PP and BDI and yielded a two-factor solution with virtually no overlap of the significant factor loadings for the items from each scal e. Confirmatory factor analyses corresponding to the two exploratory factor analyses were done to examine the goodness of fit of the five-factor solut ion versus a four-factor solution and the two-factor solution versus a one- factor solution. The five-factor and the two-factor solutions yielded the b est fit to the data relative to the other models tested. The findings suppo rt the view that part of anhedonia is a construct that is distinct and sepa rate from depression and schizophrenic symptomatology in chronic schizophre nia.