The relation of social support-seeking to quality of life in schizophrenia

Social support-seeking has been shown to improve the outcome of schizophren ia. However, no study to date has documented the impact of social support s eeking on self perceived quality of life in schizophrenia, particularly not on the relation between symptoms and quality of life. The present study ex plored this issue with a sample of 58 outpatients diagnosed with schizophre nia without comorbidity. Social support seeking, symptoms (positive, negati ve, and extrapyramidal), and multidimensional self-reported quality of life were assessed cross-sectionally. Negative symptoms were inversely related to the quality of life domain of activities of daily living. Other symptoms and social support-seeking were not related to quality of life, and social support-seeking did not interact with symptoms in their relation to qualit y of life. Social support-seeking may thus not be beneficial (nor disruptiv e) as a way of coping with symptoms in schizophrenia. More studies are need ed in order to investigate the relation of social support seeking to sympto ms and to quality of life in serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia , so that interventions with persons suffering from these disorders may be better guided.