Cognitive processes in patients with different structure of anxiety disorders

Abstract

To study the relationship between cognitive functions and psychopathological disturbances in anxiety disorders. WAIS, the modified Witkin's Embedded figures test, a symptom scale (Yu.A. Aleksandrovsky et al. 1984) were administered to 111 patients, including 37 with generalized anxiety disorders (GAD, ICD-10 F41.1), 36 with anxiety-phobic disorders (AFD, ICD-10 F40) and 38 with anxiety-hypochondriac disorders (AHD, ICD-10 F45.2), and to 114 healthy people. A distinct trend towards an increase of cognitive impairment depending on an increase in the complicity of psychopathological picture was observed as follows: GAD - AFD - AHD. A decrease in visual-motor coordination and visual attention was found in patients with GAD. In AFD patients, besides disturbances characteristic of GAD, there was a decrease on the WAIS Vocabulary subtest. In AHD patients, there was a decrease in analytic and synthetic abilities. The heterogeneity of changes in cognitive processes and the structure of their correlations with psychopathological symptoms in anxiety disorders was revealed as follows: a decrease in some parameters of cognitive processes in anxiety disorders with mild structure, an increase in cognitive dysfunction and in a number of correlations in anxiety disorders with more complex psychopathological picture, higher scores on the WAIS Block design task.