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Memory and attention performance in psychiatric patients: Lack of correspondence between clinician-rated and patient-rated functioning with neuropsychological test results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2004

STEFFEN MORITZ ,
SABINE FERAHLI  and
DIETER NABER
STEFFEN MORITZ
Affiliation:
University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hamburg, Germany
SABINE FERAHLI
Affiliation:
University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hamburg, Germany
DIETER NABER
Affiliation:
University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hamburg, Germany
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Abstract

In the present study, the correspondence between clinician-assessed and self-reported neurocognitive performance was contrasted with scores obtained from psychometric neuropsychological tests in 148 psychiatric in-patients. Results revealed that self-reported cognitive functioning was strongly associated with depressive symptomatology but was only poorly related to psychometric neurocognitive performance, particularly in schizophrenia. After illness denial was controlled for, the overall association between subjective and objective test performance was slightly increased but still failed to reach significance in six out of eight analyses. In approximately 20% to 40% of all cases, clinicians judged memory performance to be normal despite substantial impairment revealed by neuropsychological test results (attention parameters: 7–51%). Since (ecological) validity and reliability have been demonstrated for many neurocognitive paradigms, the present results question the validity of non-psychometric neurocognitive assessment and call for a complementation of clinical judgment with neurocognitive assessment. Reasons for decreased sensitivity of self-reported and clinician-assessed neurocognitive functioning are discussed. (JINS, 2004, 10, 623–633.)

Keywords

NeuropsychologyPsychometric testsSelf-reportClinical judgmentMemoryAttention
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , July 2004 , pp. 623 - 633
Copyright
2004 The International Neuropsychological Society

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