Gender differences in cognitive function of patients with chronic schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenic patients have cognitive impairments, but gender differences in these cognitive deficits have had limited study. This study assessed cognitive functioning in 471 subjects including 122 male and 78 female schizophrenic patients and 141 male and 130 female healthy controls. We found that immediate memory, language, delayed memory and total RBANS scores were significantly decreased in schizophrenia compared with healthy controls for both genders. Male patients had significant lower immediate memory, delayed memory and total RBANS scores than female patients, and healthy controls showed a similar gender difference. The RBANS showed modest correlations with PANSS scores, duration of illness and antipsychotic dose (chlorpromazine equivalents). Almost all RBANS scores in the schizophrenics and healthy controls showed significant positive correlations with education. Thus, patients of both sexes with schizophrenia experienced more deteriorated performance than healthy controls on cognitive domains of immediate memory, language and delayed memory. Furthermore, male schizophrenic patients had more serious cognitive deficits than female patients in immediate and delayed memory, but not in language, visuospatial and attention indices. AbstractSchizophrenic patients have cognitive impairments, but gender differences in these cognitive deficits have had limited study. This study assessed cognitive functioning in 471 subjects including 172 male and 78 female schizophrenic patients and 141 male and 130 female healthy controls. We found that immediate memory, language, delayed memory and total RBANS scores were significantly decreased in schizophrenia compared with healthy controls for both genders. Male patients had significant lower immediate memory, delayed memory and total RBANS scores than female patients, and healthy controls showed a similar gender difference. The RBANS showed modest correlations with PANSS scores, duration of illness and antipsychotic dose (chlorpromazine equivalents). Almost all RBANS scores in the schizophrenics and healthy controls showed significant positive correlations with education. Thus, patients of both sexes with schizophrenia experienced more deteriorated performance than healthy controls on cognitive domains of immediate memory, language and delayed memory.Furthermore, male schizophrenic patients had more serious cognitive deficits than female patients in immediate and delayed memory, but not in language, visuospatial and attention indices.

Cognitive and Social Functioning Correlates of Employment Among People with Severe Mental Illness

“…Compared with other studies with the RBANS, our scores were higher than those of the normative sample of people with schizophrenia (Wilk et al, 2004) and more in line with those found in other studies (Becker, Bond, Mueser& Torrey, 2007;Gogos, Joshua &Rossell, 2010;Han et al, 2012;Loughland et al, 2007), but the differences were probably to do with the composition of the samples studied (outpatient or inpatient care, employment programs, etc.). Our results also showed a strong association of the RBANS score with educational level, which is usual but not always found in other studies (Loughland et al, 2007) and particularly between paid work and good cognitive functioning (Bell & Bryson, 2001;Giugiario et al, 2012;McGurk & Mueser, 2004).…”

Gender differences in cognitive deficits in schizophrenia with and without diabetes

“…A recent study found a lower prevalence of diabetes in male than female individuals with schizophrenia [10]. Our study and another two studies have indicated that male individuals with schizophrenia have more cognitive deficits than females [11][12][13]. However, other studies have reported the opposite or no gender differences in the cognitive deficits of schizophrenia [5,[14][15][16].…”

“…However, both the current and other previous studies have found that males have worse negative symptoms, response to antipsychotics, and cognitive deficits than females with schizophrenia [6][7][8][9][11][12][13]. This may affect more daily life and self-medical protection awareness for male individuals and lead to their poorer glycemic control.…”

Anti-Extinction in Patients With Schizophrenia

“…However, chlorpromazine equivalent doses were not significantly correlated with task measures, making any potential effect of medication on the finding unlikely. While there were greater percentages of male participants in the 2 groups, it could not affect the finding of anti-extinction in patients, since several studies have found that gender is not a determining factor in impaired visuospatial attention in patients with schizophrenia (38,39). Also, the patient group was recruited mainly from an outpatient clinic and showed mild symptoms, thus they may not exactly represent individuals typically encountered in clinical practice or examined in previous schizophrenia studies, which may limit the ability to generalize the findings.…”