ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the difference of spatial working memory among first-episode patients with deficit and nondeficit schizophrenia. Methods The study recruited 116 first-episode treatment-naive patients with schizo-phrenia, and 60 normal controls. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was used to assess symptoms of patients and Schedule for the Deficit Syndrome (SDS) was used to divide schizophrenia patients into deficit group (28 patients) and nondeficit group (88 patients). Spatial Working Memory (SWM) test from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automat-ed Battery (CANTAB) was used to test the spatial working memory function. Results Adjusted for age, gender and years of education, there were significant differences in the performance of between errors of 4 boxes (P=0.03), between errors of 6 boxes (P=0.01), between errors of 8 boxes (P=0.03), total errors (P=0.01) and strategy (P0.05). Conclusion The impairment of SWM was more severe in deficit schizophrenia patients than in nondeficit patients at early stage of the disease, suggesting they are different subtypes of schizophrenia.