Neurocognitive and social functioning in schizophrenia: A 2.5 year follow-up study

Quality of life and its predictors in people with schizophrenia

“…Some previous research groups have investigated the relation between QOL and cognitive function in people with schizophrenia, and reported the significant correlations between QOL and some domains of cognitive function such as verbal memory, vocabulary, fluency performance, attention, social knowledge, and executive function (12,28,(29)(30)(31)(32).…”

Should cognitive impairment be included in the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia?

“…Thus, although the cognitive deficits of affective disorders may be profound in some cases, these deficits are related to clinical symptoms. In contrast, cognitive impairment in patients with schizophrenia has been repeatedly demonstrated to be uncorrelated with psychotic symptoms (3,(21)(22)(23). This absence of correlation is partially due to the distinct longitudinal differences between psychotic symptoms and cognition: the symptoms of schizophrenia vary over time in almost all patients, leading to low stability coefficients over time (24), while the stability of cognitive deficits in all domains is very high, with test-retest coefficients ranging between 0.70 and 0.85 even in patients tested one year apart following their initial treatment for psychosis (24).…”

Symptoms versus neurocognition as predictors of change in life skills in schizophrenia after outpatient rehabilitation

“…For example, Norman et al, (1999) in a study of 50 patients with schizophrenia entering a community case management and family support program, found that measures of episodic memory, executive-function and verbal fluency measured at study entry were not linked to outcome at a 1-year follow-up. Similarly, Addington and Addington (2000), in a sample of 65 patients receiving routine community care failed to find relationships between neurocognitive measures of verbal IQ, early information processing, attention, memory, organization and executive-function measured at study entry and clinician-rated community function and quality-of-life at a 2.5-year follow-up.…”

“…Thus, the neurocognitive and symptom predictors of everydaylife-activity after cognitive and psychosocial rehabilitation remain unclear. Third, only a limited number of studies have investigated the utility of neurocognitive and symptom predictors of change in functional outcome measures over a follow-up period (Addington & Addington, 2000;Brekke et al, 2005Brekke et al, , 2007Friedman et al, 2002;Mueser et al, 1991;Smith et al, 2002Woonings et al, 2002. This is important as studies of functional change suggest which neurocognitive and symptom features may predict improvement as a result of a specific intervention beyond those features linked to functional status cross-sectionally.…”