Neuropsychological functioning in inpatients with major depression or schizophrenia

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

Kim T Mueser¹  Annette Schaub²  Rolf Engel²  Hans-Jürgen Möller²  Nicole Neubauer³ 

[1] Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Boston University, 940 Commonwealth Avenue West, 02215, Boston, MA, USA;Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Munich, Nußbaumstr 7, D-80336, Munich, Germany;Psychological Psychotherapy, Rheinstr 30, 80803, Munich, Germany;

关键词: Neuropsychological functioning;    Depressive disorder;    Schizophrenia;    Psychopathology;    Post-acute stage of the illness;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-244X-13-203

 received in 2012-09-03, accepted in 2013-05-07,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundStudies that compare neuropsychological functioning in inpatients with mood disorder or schizophrenia come to heterogeneous results. This study aims at investigating the question whether there are different neuropsychological test profiles in stabilised post-acute inpatients with affective disorders or schizophrenia.MethodWe were interested in evaluating impairment in specific areas of cognitive functioning in patients with schizophrenia or depression. In clinical reality, patients with depression and schizophrenia are often treated together with little attention to their specific needs. 74 patients with major depression and 38 patients with schizophrenia were assessed in a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. All patients were in a post-acute stage of their illness, i.e. remission of acute symptoms.ResultsIn spite of a comparable mean score of psychopathological symptoms in the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale-Expanded (BPRS-E) as well as in the Global Assessment Functioning Scale (GAF), patients with depressive disorder showed significantly better results in verbal and visual short-term memory, verbal fluency, visual-motor coordination, information processing in visual-verbal functioning and selective attention compared to patients with schizophrenia. No significant differences between both samples were found in practical reasoning, general verbal abstraction, spatial-figural functioning, speed of cognitive processing.ConclusionsThese results show that there are differences in scores in psychopathology (BPRS-E, GAF) in patients with affective disorders or schizophrenia and different neuropsychological test profiles in the post-acute stage of their illness.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Schaub et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013