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Relationship between cognitive functions and empathy in patients with neurocognitive deficit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

D. Galletta*
Affiliation:
Department Of Head-neck Care Unit Of Psychiatry And Psychology “federico Ii” University Hospital Naples, “Federico II” University Hospital Naples, Italy, Naples, Italy
I. Lauria
Affiliation:
Department Of Head-neck Care Unit Of Psychiatry And Psychology “federico Ii” University Hospital Naples, “Federico II” University Hospital Naples, Italy, Naples, Italy
A.M. Mastrola
Affiliation:
Department Of Head-neck Care Unit Of Psychiatry And Psychology “federico Ii” University Hospital Naples, “Federico II” University Hospital Naples, Italy, Naples, Italy
M. Confuorto
Affiliation:
Department Of Head-neck Care Unit Of Psychiatry And Psychology “federico Ii” University Hospital Naples, “Federico II” University Hospital Naples, Italy, Naples, Italy
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Empathy is a social emotive skill that let to experience the same feelings of another person without being in the same situation. It changes during the growth becoming more over sophisticated with the involving of cognitive functions such as perspective taking (Hoffmann, 2000). Several researches observed a correlation between empathy and psychopathologies that involve cognitive functions such as attention and executive functions (Abdel-Hamid et al., 2019; Blair, 2018; Pijper et al., 2018) or decision-making (Francis et al., 2019).

Objectives

To investigate the impact of cognitive impairment on different empathy dimensions.

Methods

80 subjects with severe neurocognitive deficit were examined. WAIS-R, neuropsychological battery and IRI test were performed.

Results

The impairment of perspective-taking dimension was significantly noticeable (=or<17/30). In addition, impairments of self-regulation process and inner-state monitoring mechanisms were also observed (=or<18/40).

Conclusions

According to previous researches, this study confirms that empathy can be reduced when cognitive functions are compromised by psychopathologies or other medical conditions. Personal distress and perspective taking are empathy dimensions more affected in these cases.

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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