Cognitive functioning in first episode psychosis. Gender differences and relation with clinical variables

Abstract

Aims to study the differences in cognitive functioning in patients and controls. In addition, study the influence of symptoms, cannabis consumption, chlorpromazine doses, DUP and IQ in cognitive performance in patients, both in the total sample and divided by gender. Methods 70 first episode psychosis patients and 63 healthy controls (HC) participated in the study and were assessed with the MATRICS battery and the Vocabulary subtest of WAIS‐IV. Symptoms in FEP patients were evaluated with the Emsley factors of the PANSS scale. Results patients showed lower scores than controls in all cognitive domains studied. There were no significant differences between FEP men and FEP women, but we found gender differences in favour of women in processing speed, working memory and composite total scored domains in the HC group. Finally, symptoms and Chlorpromazine doses showed an influence on cognitive performance in the total FEP sample. When splitting the sample by gender, positive symptoms may be more detrimental to women's cognitive functioning, while disorganized symptoms may play the most important role in cognitive performance in men. Conclusions patients showed worse cognitive performance in all cognitive domains compared to healthy controls. In our FEP sample, gender does not seem to influence cognitive performance measured with the MATRICS. Severity of symptoms influences positively in cognitive performance. The dose of Chlorpromazine and symptoms are influential variables to be taken into account in cognition rehabilitation programs.

Influence of clinical and neurocognitive factors in psychosocial functioning after a first episode non-affective psychosis: differences between males and females

“…Two main findings emerged from the present study. Firstly, individuals with FEP had higher substance abuse, lower SES, worse psychosocial functioning and neurocognitive performance in all cognitive domains in relation to the HC group ( 27 , 61 ). As expected, individuals with FEP present more difficulties and impairments than the HC group.…”

Association between cannabis use and symptom dimensions in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: an individual participant data meta-analysis on 3053 individuals

“…Two others included very few cannabis-users as compared to non-users so the mean difference between both groups could not be adjusted for covariates. 43 , 44 These two datasets were included in a post-hoc sensitivity analysis. Seventeen datasets were thus included in the main analysis.…”

“…The second sensitivity analysis included the two additional datasets marked as “not used in main analysis” in Table 1 . 43 , 44 Indeed, these two datasets each contained very few cannabis-users (two and six respectively). The linear regression could thus not be adjusted for covariates, introducing potential bias.…”