The British Journal of Psychiatry (2009) 195: 336-345. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.108.055590
© 2009 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Neuropsychological functioning in first-episode schizophrenia

Eugenia Kravariti, MA, MSc, PhD

Department of Psychiatry, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London

Kevin Morgan, PhD

Department of Psychiatry, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London and Department of Psychology, University of Westminster London

Paul Fearon, MSc, PhD, MRCPI, MRCPsych, Jolanta W. Zanelli, MSc, Julia M. Lappin, MBChB, MSc, MRCPsych, Paola Dazzan, MSc, PhD, MRCPsych and Craig Morgan, MSc, PhD

Department of Psychiatry, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London

Gillian A. Doody, MPhil, MRCPsych

Community Health Sciences, Queen’s Medical Centre, Institute of Clinical Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham

Glynn Harrison, FRCPsych

Academic Unit of Psychiatry, University of Bristol, Bristol

Peter B. Jones, MSc, PhD, FRCP, MRCPsych

Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge

Robin M. Murray, DSc, FRCP, FRCPsych, FmedSci and Abraham Reichenberg, PhD

Department of Psychiatry, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK

Correspondence: Eugenia Kravariti, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Box 58, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK. Email: e.kravariti{at}iop.kcl.ac.uk

Declaration of interest

None.

Background

Identifying neurocognitive subtypes in schizophrenia may help establish neurobiologically meaningful subtypes of the disorder, but is frequently confounded by differences in intellectual function between individuals with schizophrenia and controls.

Aims

To examine neuropsychological performance in individuals with epidemiologically based, first-onset schizophrenia and intellectually matched controls.

Method

Using standard IQ and reading tests, we examined the proportions of 101 people with epidemiologically derived, first-onset schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and 317 community controls, falling into three a priori defined intellectual categories: ‘stable good’, ‘deteriorated poor’ and ‘stable poor’. Neuropsychological function was compared between intellectually matched participants with schizophrenia and control subgroups.

Results

Multiple deficits in executive function, processing speed and verbal memory, but not visual/spatial perception/memory, were detected in all participant groups with schizophrenia compared with controls. The average effect size across the affected domains ranged from small to medium to large in the stable good, deteriorated poor and stable poor subgroups of participants with schizophrenia, respectively.

Conclusions

Compared with intellectually matched controls, people with epidemiologically derived, first-onset schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder show multiple deficits in executive function, processing speed and verbal memory.


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