Neuropsychological impairments in patients with schizophrenia: stability and prediction of outcome.
OBJECTIVE: To assess neuropsychological impairments among fairly young schizophrenic patients over time, and relations between impairment and symptoms, drug type and dose. METHOD: Clinical and neuropsychological data for 29 schizophrenic patients have been published earlier. Twenty of these patients were retested after 3 years using the same methods. RESULTS: The patients displayed stable impairments in most neuropsychological tests. Vocabulary and focused attention improved over time, whereas response slowness became more pronounced. Symptoms varied considerably over time. A specific pattern of neuropsychological impairments, but not measures of psychopathology, predicted clinical outcome. Patients were unable to judge their test performance. CONCLUSION: A few years after the first episode, our patients displayed a specific pattern of neuropsychological impairment, which predicted clinical outcome. One aspect of the impairment appears to be failure at self-monitoring.