Comparison of two measures assessing prospective memory impairment in elderly people with schizophrenia / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To compare the results of two different measures assessing prospective memory (PM) in elderly schizophrenia,and explore their diagnostic validity.Methods:Fifty patients who were diagnosed as schiz-ophrenia according to the criteria of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,Fourth Edition (DSM-Ⅳ)and 50 normal elderly people were enrolled in the study.Laboratory paradigm prospective memory task and the Chinese version of the Cambridge prospective memory Test (C-CAMPROMPT)were administered to measure thelevel of EBPM and TBPM.The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition,Continuous Performance Test-I-dentical Pairs were used to evaluate IQ and attention.Results:Whether in the laboratory paradigm or C-CAM-PROMPT,schizophrenia group performed worse than normal controls on PM total scores[7(0,16)vs.12(0,16),14 (4,34)vs.25(11,36)],EBPM[3(0,8)vs.6(0,8),7(2,16)vs.14(4,18)]and TBPM [3(0,8)vs.6(0,8),6(2,18) vs.12(4,18)],and patients had comparable performances in PM subtypes[-1.0(-2.2,1.0)vs. -1.0(-2.1, 0.8),-1.9(-3.4,0.8)vs. -1.8(-2.9,1.6)].In the C-CAMPROMPT,the scores of EBPM and TBPM were negatively related to age(r=-0.36 --0.40,P<0.001 ),but there was no significant relationship between PM performance and age in the laboratory paradigm task.The area under ROC curve of the laboratory paradigm and C-CAMPROMPT were 0.73 and 0.85.While 8 and 19 as the cut off value,the sensitivity were 0.60 and 0.74,and the specificity were 0.76 and 0.90,respectively.Conclusion:The two measures have confirmed that the elderly schizophrenia have comparable performances in EBPM and TBPM.Both the C-CAMPROMPT and the laboratory paradigm have moderate level of diagnostic validity,but the former is slightly higher and more susceptible to aging.