Insight into Schizophrenia: A comparative study between patients and family members INTRODUCTION Insight is ability to understand the true cause and meaning of a situation (such as a set of symptoms). Impaired insight is diminished ability to understand the objective reality of a situation 1 . A lack of insight was the most prevalent symptom of schizophrenia found in two seminal international studies, the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia (IPSS) 2 and the Classification of Chronic Hospitalized Shyamanta Das*; Dipesh Bhagabati**, Uddip Talukdar*** *Department of Psychiatry, Silchar Medical College Hospital, Silchar, Assam, ** Department of Psychiatry, Gauhati Medical College Hospital, Assam,*** Department of Psychiatry, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Jolly-Grant, Dehradun, Uttaranchal, ABSTRACT Background: Despite the recognition of the role that sociocultural factors play in the process of acquiring insight, recent research on this issue is scare. Aim of the present study was to compare patients’ insight with family members’ insight. Method: 50 patients with schizophrenia (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems – Tenth Revision – ICD-10) undergoing treatment and members of their families were interviewed using the Schedule for Assessment of Insight (SAI). It was a cross-sectional study. Results: Family members performed better than patients in the total and partial SAI scores [total: 11 to 6.7 (p < 0.0001); adherence: 3.84 to 2.7 (p < 0.0001); recognition of illness: 4.54 to 2.84 (p < 0.0001); relabeling of psychotic phenomena: 2.62 to 1.16 (p < 0.0001)]. However, when the scores were correlated for each patient- family member pair, the partial scores had positive correlations (adherence r = 0.07191; recognition of illness r = 0.1632; relabeling of psychotic phenomena r = 0.2052). Conclusion: There was a positive correlation between the scores of family members and patients regarding adherence, recognition of illness and the ability to relabel psychotic phenomena as abnormal. This might be understood as a stronger influence of sociocultural factors in these dimensions. The fact that family members were not assessed for the presence of psychopathology is a limitation of this study. Keywords: Schizophrenia. Awareness. Self concept. Family relations. Social environment. Schizophrenics (CCHS). In addition, lack of insight has been included among the 12 symptoms that have the highest power to discriminate schizophrenia from other psychoses and depression 3 . It has been shown that patients with better insight are more likely to present better adherence to treatment 4, 5 . Lack of insight has been correlated with worse outcome 6 , more admissions 6 , worse psychosocial functioning 7, 8 , reduced success rates in outpatient treatment of relapses 9 , and longer interval between the onset of symptoms and the seeking of treatment 10 . The relationship between insight and psychopathology is controversial. Some authors have proposed that insight Correspondence: Dr. Shyamanta Das Department of Psychiatry, Silchar Medical College Hospital, Silchar, Assam, India E-Mail: drshyamantadas@gmailcom ORIGINAL ARTICLE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ORIGINAL ARTICLE