Browsing by Author "Birling, Heli"

Aims: First-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders are associated with widespread cognitive impairment. Anxiety and depression symptoms are common in first-episode schizophrenia spectrum patients, but as far as is known a sense of mastery reflecting positive psychological resources has not been previously studied in this group of patients. The aim of this study was to find out whether anxiety and depression symptoms as well as sense of mastery are related to cognitive performance in first-episode schizophrenia spectrum patients. Methods: The study was based on a sample of data collected in the Helsinki Psychosis Study, which included first-episode schizophrenia spectrum patients (N=40) and matched population controls (N=62). Cognitive performance was evaluated by several commonly known tasks, anxiety and depression symptoms with a BPRS-E interview and sense of mastery with Pearlin and Schooler's mastery scale. The relationship between anxiety and depression symptoms as well as sense of mastery and cognitive performance was studied with Spearman’s correlation coefficients and linear regression analyses where gender, age, and years of education were controlled for. Findings and conclusions: In the first-episode schizophrenia spectrum patients, more severe anxiety symptoms were associated with better performance in a task requiring immediate verbal memory. When gender, age, and years of education were controlled for, anxiety symptoms were no longer related to memory performance. Depression symptoms and sense of mastery were not related to cognitive performance. In the controls, increase of anxiety and depression symptoms and a decrease in the sense of mastery impaired the performance in a task requiring immediate and/or delayed verbal memory. The cognitive performance of first-episode schizophrenia spectrum patients seems to be explained by other factors than anxiety and depression symptoms or sense of mastery, but these factors may, however, play an important role in the quality of life in patients.