Social cognition in bipolar disorder: the role of sociodemographic, clinical, and neurocognitive variables in emotional intelligence

Objective The main aims of this study were to examine the differences in the Emotional Intelligence ( EI ), the emotional domain of social cognition ( SC ), between euthymic patients with bipolar disorder ( BD ) and healthy controls ( HC ) and to evaluate the contribution of sociodemographic, clinical, and neuropsychological variables to EI . Methods We recruited 202 patients with BD and 50 HC . EI was evaluated using the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test ( MSCEIT ). The sociodemographic, clinical, and neurocognitive variables that showed a significant association with EI were entered into hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Results BD patients obtained significantly lower scores compared to HC in the Emotional Intelligence Quotient ( EIQ ) and in the Understanding Emotions branch score. The best fitting model for the variables associated with EI in the patients group was a linear combination of gender, estimated IQ , family history of affective diagnosis, and executive function. The model, including these previous variables, explained up to 27.6% of the observed variance ( R 2  = 0.276, F  = 16.406, P  < 0.001). Conclusions The identification of variables associated with deficit in EI , such as male gender, lower estimated IQ , family history of affective diagnosis. and lower executive function performance, may help in selecting treatment targets to improve SC , and especially EI , in patients with BD .