Neurocognitive Function in Schizophrenia : A follow-up study

Neurocognitive deficits are considered a core feature of schizophrenia. Deficits covering a wide range of functions have been well documented. However there are still relatively few longitudinal studies regarding the long-term development of neurocognitive impairment. The current study examined the effect of time in schizophrenic patients and controls concerning cognitive functions. A neurocognitive test-battery was administered on two occasions to 36 schizophrenic patients and 46 healthy controls with approximately 4.5 year interval. Results showed that schizophrenic patients performed significantly worse on all measures on both occasions. No significant decline was found over time for either group except for on Trail Making Test, part B. Improvement on Continuous Performance Test was found for affected patients and improvement on Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test was found for controls. Age was related to outcome in controls and education was related to outcome in patients. The conclusion is drawn that neurocognitive measures are relatively stable over 4.5 years in patients with schizophrenia, in line with earlier research. The authors discuss the impact of age and education and limitations of the study