Abstract:

Aim. To assess the association of clinical and therapeutic parameters with the severity of the neurocognitive deficits in patients with schizophrenia. Materials and methods. We examined 118 patients with schizophrenia, aged 34 [29; 41] years, and with a disease duration of 10 [4; 16] years. 33 patients (28%) received conventional antipsychotic drugs (CAD), and 85 (72%) patients received atypical antipsychotic drugs (AAD). As concomitant therapy, 58 people (49.1%) took trihexyphenidyl, 60 people did not take it (50.9%). Assessment of cognitive functions was carried out for all patients using the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS), and clinical psychopathological symptomatology was evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Statistical analysis of the data was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test ANOVA with the multiple comparison procedure, the Pearson’s chi-squared test, and K-means cluster analysis. Results. Neurocognitive deficits formed three clusters of disturbances that differ in clinical severity: 1) mild, 2) moderate, 3) severe. According to the subscale of positive PANSS symptoms, patients with mild neurocognitive deficits had a lower average total score compared to patients with severe neurocognitive deficits (p = 0.011), who, in turn, received significantly longer antipsychotic therapy compared with patients with moderate (p = 0.014) and mild (p = 0.01) neurocognitive deficits. Herewith, the duration of CAD treatment did not differ between clusters; consequently, the obtained results on antipsychotics as a whole were obtained due to AAD (p = 0.005 and p = 0.001, respectively). Trihexyphenidyl did not affect the severity of neurocognitive deficits. Conclusion. The severity of positive symptoms of schizophrenia was lower in patients with mild neurocognitive deficits. The most pronounced neurocognitive deficits are observed in patients receiving AAD. 

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