Citation

Höschel K, Irle E, Rüther E. Fortschr. Neurol. Psychiatr. 1998; 66(11): 512-519.

Vernacular Title

Psychopathologische Symptomatik und kognitive Leistungen schizophrener Patienten.

Affiliation

Klinik für Psychiatrie, Universität Göttinger.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Georg Thieme Verlag)

DOI

10.1055/s-2007-995292

PMID

9850829

Abstract

Psychopathological symptoms and cognitive test performance were examined in 34 acute schizophrenic patients. The results of a clusteranalytic approach in order to distinguish groups of patients with different syndromes were disappointing. Three dimensions of negative, hallucinatory-delusional, and disorganised symptoms could be established by factor analysis. The disorganised symptom dimension showed strong and significant relations to mnestic and intellectual impairments of the patients. Hallucinatory-delusional symptoms were related to deficits in tests of visual memory and visual search. Negative symptoms were not related to cognitive impairments of the patients. The results are discussed in respect of other studies reporting correlations of schizophrenic symptoms and cognitive disturbances, and with regard to hypotheses of brain dysfunction in schizophrenia. In future research, consideration of the three main dimensions of schizophrenic symptoms could be useful to reduce the heterogeneity of schizophrenic samples.

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