ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: This study investigates the pattern of association between patient unawareness of illness and neuropsychological tests of frontal lobe function in subjects with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BD) with psychotic features. METHOD: We administered the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST) and a shortened version of the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD) to a sample of 64 patients with psychosis (42 with schizophrenia and 22 with BD). RESULTS: None of the correlations between WCST scores and insight scores were statistically significant, either in the total group or in each group analyzed separately. Further, no differences were seen in insight scores between sexes and between the diagnostic groups. CONCLUSIONS: The 3 insight dimensions (that is, awareness of mental disorder, awareness of social consequences of mental disorder, and awareness of the benefits of medication) do not appear to be associated with frontal impairment, as measured by the WCST.
Subject(s)
Bipolar Disorder/complications , Cognition Disorders/diagnosis , Cognition Disorders/etiology , Psychotic Disorders/complications , Schizophrenia/complications , Schizophrenic Psychology , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Neuropsychological Tests , Severity of Illness IndexSubject(s)
Antiviral Agents/adverse effects , Bipolar Disorder/chemically induced , Bipolar Disorder/drug therapy , Hepatitis C/drug therapy , Interferon-alpha/adverse effects , Antiviral Agents/administration & dosage , Antiviral Agents/therapeutic use , Humans , Interferon-alpha/administration & dosage , Interferon-alpha/therapeutic use , Male , Middle Aged , Substance Withdrawal SyndromeABSTRACT
Studies comparing 'subjective experiences' in schizophrenic and affective disorders have reached inconclusive results. We investigated the pattern of 'subjective perceived cognitive disturbances' in a group of 55 schizophrenic patients and 39 bipolar patients hospitalized for an index psychotic episode. The assessment of the subjective experiences was made using the Frankfurter Beschwerde-Fragebogen (FBF). Comparing the two groups on the four FBF factors, schizophrenic patients showed significantly higher scores in the areas of 'central cognitive disturbances', 'perception and motility' other than a significantly higher FBF total score. Our results suggest that cognitive, perception and motility disturbances are the most characteristic subjective experiences of schizophrenic patients in comparison with bipolar patients. This finding need to be further explored in light of the issue of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia.
