Neurocognitive profiles of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia

Abstract

Objective To find out whether obsessive-compulsive (OCD) and schizophrenia (SCH) subjects show distinguishable cognitive performance profiles and to determine the magnitude of cognitive deficits in both groups.Methods Thirty patients with OCD and 30 patients with SCH,admitted to our hospital from August 2011 to February 2012,and 30 healthy control subjects (HCS) were assessed by using a battery of neuropsychological tests,which included trail making test (TMT),Stroop test (ST),Wechsler memory scale (WMS),improved Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST); the data were compared with statistical methods.Results In TMT,the patients with OCD showed significantly worse performance in TMT-B using time and TMT B-A (s) than subjects with HCS (P＜0.05),and the patients with OCD showed significantly better performance than the patients with SCH in all aspects (P＜0.05),except the TMT-B errors; the patients with SCH showed significantly worse indexes in all aspects of TMT as compared with subjects with HCS (P＜0.05).In ST,the patients with OCD showed worse performance in St-cw errors and St-cw times than subjects with HCS,and showed better performance in ST-W errors and ST-W using times than the patients with SCH (P＜0.05); the patients with SCH showed significantly worse performance in all aspects as compared with subjects with HCS (P＜ 0.05).In WMS,the patients with OCD showed worse performance in picture recall,recognition,associative learning,short memory and memory quotient than subjects with HCS (P＜0.05),and were better performance than the patients with SCH in all aspects ofWMS (P＜0.05),except in long memory,recognition,associative learning and tactile memory; the patients with SCH showed significantly worse performance in all aspects of WMS than subjects with HCS (P＜0.05).The patients with OCD and SCH showed worse performance in all aspects of WCST,except random error number,than subjects with HCS (P＜0.05); the patients with OCD had better performance than the patients with SCH in all aspects of WCST (P＜0.05).Conclusion The cognitive defects in patients with OCD primarily occur on narrowing attention,conversion difficulties,short-term memory and visual space memory disorders,while patients with SCH have comprehensive neurocognitive impairment; the overall level of cognitive function in patients with OCD is higher than that in patients with schizophrenia. Key words: Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Schizophrenia; Neuropsychology; Cognitive profile