Impairment of Romantic Emotion and Empathy in Schizophrenics: A Preliminary Study

Abstract Background Some articles revealed a relationship between empathy and felt-musical emotion in normal people. Whether the dysfunction of felt-musical emotion exist in schizophrenics is not clear, but several findings indicated these patients had impairments of all-round empathy. The objective of our research is to explore musical felt emotion elicited by music(sad/happy) of schizophrenics and compare the differences between schizophrenic patients and normal subjects; at the same time, we investigated the association between clinical symptoms, empathy and musical felt emotion in schizophrenic patients. Methods We recruited 47 people with schizophrenic and 47 matched normal subjects who met the criteria to complete our semi-structured interview, musical emotion experience test and other behavioral tests. The IRI-C(Chinese version of Interpersonal Reactivity Index test) was used to assess the empathy of the subjects. In addition, the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) were also filled out. Results In line with previous findings, part of emotional experience of happy and sad music in schizophrenic patients is impaired. With respect of empathy dimensions, we found the higher the fantasy ability is, the easier schizophrenics are to experience Romantic with the stimulation of happy/sad music. In addition, there are some relationships between clinical symptoms and music experience. Conclusion This conclusion may provide us subsequent idea, if we enhance the romantic emotion of schizophrenics on happy music experience via certain ways that may be beneficial to improve the level of their Empathy and fantasy-dimension.