The Association Between Cognitive Deficits and Clinical Characteristic in First-Episode Drug Naive Patients With Schizophrenia

Background: Schizophrenia is a severe mental disease which characterized by positive symptom, negative symptom, general pathology syndrome and cognitive deficits. In recent years, many studies have investigated the relationship between cognitive deficits and clinical characteristics in schizophrenia, but relatively few studies have been performed on first-episode drug-naive patients. Methods: Eighty seven first-episode drug-naive schizophrenia patients were assessed for positive symptom, negative symptom, general pathology symptom and cognitive deficits from the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale and MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery. Psychotics depression were assessed using the Calgary depressing scale for schizophrenia. The relationship between clinical characteristics and cognitive deficits were assessed using correlation analysis and linear regression analysis. Results: The prevalence of cognitive deficits among the patients in our study was 85.1% (74/87) which was much higher than that in the general population. According to correlation analysis, negative symptom was negatively correlated with speed of processing and social cognition, and general pathology showed a negative correlation with attention/vigilance. In addition, a positive correlation was found between age and speed of processing. No correlation was found between cognitive deficits and positive symptom. Conclusions: This study confirmed that negative symptom is negatively related with some domains of cognitive function in first-episode drug naive schizophrenia patients. Trail Registration: NCT03451734. Registered March 2, 2018 (retrospectively registered).

Automated summary

This study revealed a high prevalence of cognitive deficits in first-episode drug-naive schizophrenia patients compared to the general population. The relationship between cognitive deficits and negative symptoms and general pathology symptoms showed negative correlations, while no correlation was found between cognitive deficits and positive symptoms.