Relationship between disorganised speech, cognitive functions, and social functioning in people with schizophrenia

Abstract

People with schizophrenia exhibit a wide range of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional dysfunctions; among other difficulties, people with schizophrenia show disorganized speech, also called formal thought disorder or discourse disorder. The aim of this work is to analyze and find associations between disorganized speech, attention, cognitive impairment, and their relationship with the severity and social and adaptive functioning of patients with schizophrenia of chronic evolution living in an institution. A descriptive correlational and quantitative explanatory design is carried out with 71 patients diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia with different clinical scales, cognitive assessment scales and social functioning scales. The results show that people with schizophrenia have difficulties in all the areas assessed. Disconnected or disorganized speech is found to correlate positively with cognitive function, clinical severity, and social functioning. In conclusion, several associations between these variables are observed and need to be considered for proper intervention with this population.