Theory of mind : assessment development and investigation of cocaine dependents

• Ano de defesa: 2014
• Autor(a) principal: Vieira, Breno Sanvicente
• Orientador(a): Grassi-oliveira, Rodrigo
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Pontif?cia Universidade Cat?lica do Rio Grande do Sul
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa de P?s-Gradua??o em Psicologia
• Departamento: Faculdade de Psicologia
• País: BR
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: PSICOLOGIA COGNITIVA; COCA?NA - ASPECTOS PSICOL?GICOS; PSICOMETRIA (PSICOLOGIA); DEPEND?NCIA QU?MICA; TESTES PSICOL?GICOS; NEUROPSICOLOGIA
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA
• Link de acesso: http://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/855

BACKGROUND: Substance use-related disorders are characterized by social problems, thought to be the result of social cognition impairments. In particular, the ability to interpret the thoughts of other people - Theory of Mind (ToM) - seems to be impaired. In view of this, this study aimed to investigate ToM functioning in a cocaine dependent (COD) sample. METHOD: This dissertation comprised four studies. The first is a systematic review of ToM in substance users. The second and the third deal with the development of instruments for the ToM assessment. The second is the translation and adaption of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) into the Brazilian Portuguese, and the third describes the validation of the Hinting task and the ToM Stories task. The fourth work represents the main study of this dissertation the investigation of the ToM of COD women. 30 COD women and 30 healthy controls (HC) matched for sex, age, education, individual income and IQ took part in this study. All participants were assessed with the RMET, the Hinting Task and the ToM stories. Cognitive and clinical factors were also assessed in order to control for possible differences. RESULTS: The systematic review revealed that ToM deficits were present in substance use-related disorders. Besides that, the review indicated that these impairments were related to daily life and clinical features of substance use-related disorders. In addition, this dissertation advanced with regard the technological development, since it guaranteed a translated and adapted Brazilian version of the RMET. By the same token, in the third study the Hinting Task and the ToM Stories were shown to have convergent, predictive, concurrent, discriminative and diagnostic validity. Finally, in the fourth study, COD women were found to have impaired ToM in comparison with HC. Additionally, correlations indicated ToM was negatively associated with dependence chronicity. CONCLUSION: Results were consistent with the published literature, suggesting that COD like other drug dependence disorders, is associated with ToM deficits. In view of the results that suggested an association between ToM and social and clinical outcomes, we have proposed a framework in which there is a bidirectional, facilitative relationship between drug use and ToM impairments. The implications of the results for future research and potential interventions based on targeting the psychosocial problems found to be impaired in substance use disorders are discussed