ArticleBMC psychiatry2024
Prevalence of neurocognitive deficits in patients with first-episode schizophrenia in an African sample and its relationship with dimensions of psychopathology and psychosocial outcome.
Article in BMC psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Whole brain grey matter synaptic terminal density, age and intellectual functioning in schizophrenia: an in vivo [Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundCurrent evidence supports the idea that neurocognitive deficits (NCD) constitute a core dimension of schizophrenia. Studies on longitudinal changes in neurocognition among neuroleptic-naive first-episode schizophrenia (FES) from Africa are uncommon. We aimed to highlight the prevalence of, and changes in NCD among FES on naturalistic treatment follow-up for 8 weeks, and the relationship with psychopathological and psychosocial outcomes.
methodsConsecutive FES and Healthy Control (HC) were recruited. Diagnosis of schizophrenia was based on ICD-10 criteria. The HC (n = 86) consisted of nursing students in the same facility, recruited purposely to match the cases in age and gender. After the baseline assessment, 82 FES were followed up 4-weekly for changes in NCD, psychopathological and psychosocial ratings for a period of 8 weeks, using the 3 alternate forms of the Screen for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP), the Wisconsin Card Test, the Mini Mental State Examination, as well as the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the WHO Disability Assessment Scale, and the Global Assessment of Functioning scale. The control group was tested only once, and their scores were utilized for comparison with the patients' scores only at week 8. The prevalence of neurocognitive deficits in the two groups was described using percentages and 95% confidence interval. Predictors of cognitive function was determined using multivariate linear regression.
resultsThe prevalence of any NCD among FES at 8 weeks and HC was 62.9% (95% CI: 51.5%, 74.2%) and 1.2% (95% CI: 0.0%, 6.6%), respectively. With treatment, there was a significant improvement in cognitive function at each interval of follow-up. At week 8, the prevalence of any NCD among patients in remission was 55.1%. Total SCIP scores at week 8 had significant inverse moderate relationship with the dimensions of psychopathology. Conversely, total SCIP score was strongly positively correlated with functioning (rho
conclusionThe high prevalence of NCD when patients were in remission indicates that they are enduring and merit consideration as a domain of psychopathology.
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