A-194 Sustained Attention Differences Between Electrical Injury Patients and Combat Exposed Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

Abstract Objective: Electrical injury (EI) patients demonstrate heterogenous neuropsychological performance (NP), yet sustained attention (SA) has not been investigated. This study aimed to characterize differences in SA on the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test II (CPT-II) between patients with past EI and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Method: Participants included EI patients and veterans with PTSD receiving neuropsychological evaluations at affiliated academic medical centers. Inclusion criteria for veterans involved meeting criteria for PTSD per the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-IV. EI and PTSD participants were included if they completed the CPT-II and failed < 1 performance validity tests. The 50 EI participants were 80% male, ages 19-64 (M=42, SD=10.67), and 94% White. The 35 PTSD participants were 94% male, ages 25-49 (M=33, SD=5.55), and 31% White, 45% Black, 20% Hispanic, and 3% biracial. Results: Percentage of participants showing at least three atypical scores on the CPT-II was higher for EI (52%) compared with PTSD (20%) participants [χ^2 (1, N = 85) = 8.876, p < .003]. EI participants showed significantly greater SA difficulties on CPT-II overall standard error [F(1,84)=22.18, p< 0.001, ηp2=.21], variability of standard error [F(1,84)=7.70, p=0.028, ηp2=.09], reaction time by inter-stimulus interval (ISI) [F(1,84)=9.19, p=0.018, ηp2=.10], and standard error by ISI [F(1,84)=6.48, p=0.039, ηp2=.07]. All p-values were false discovery rate corrected. Conclusions: EI participants demonstrated overall greater inconsistency in response speed with slower and inconsistent reaction times during different ISIs. EI patients display a unique pattern of SA performance compared to veterans with PTSD, which may relate to the variability in EI NP.