Aberrant salience relationship with first rank symptoms

Background Aberrant salience is the incorrect assignment of salience, significance, or value to different innocuous stimuli that might precede the onset of psychotic symptoms. The present study aimed to perform a preliminary evaluation of potentially different correlations between the Aberrant Salience Inventory (ASI) score and dimensional or categorical diagnostic approaches. Methods 168 adult outpatients with a current psychiatric diagnosis were consecutively enrolled. Patients were evaluated using different psychometric scales. ASI was used to evaluate aberrant salience, and to evaluate the association between ASI scores and first rank symptoms (FRS), and/or with a psychiatric diagnosis. Principal dichotomic clusters of ASI were identified using the Chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) method. Results Current (16.76 +/- 6.02 vs 13.37 +/- 5.76; p = 0.001), lifetime (15.74 +/- 6.08 vs 13.16 +/- 5.74; p = 0.005) and past (15.75 +/- 6.01 vs 13.33 +/- 5.80; p = 0.009) FRS were the main clusters dichotomizing ASI. The average ASI score did not significantly differ among patients with different diagnoses. Conclusions ASI could be used as a tool to identify psychopathological dimensions, rather than the categorical diagnoses, in the schizophrenic spectrum. Keypoints Aberrant salience is a trans-nosographic trait of psychotic and pre-psychotic symptoms which is not commonly used in clinical practice. The use of the Aberrant Salience Inventory may constitute a valuable instrument for the early detection of psychosis. A dimensional approach evaluating aberrant salience may provide a different framework in the assessment of psychotic diagnoses.