Individual trajectories of cognitive performance in first episode psychosis: a 2-year follow-up study

Abstract

Individual changes over time in cognition in patients with psychotic disorders have been studied very little, especially in the case of frst episode psychosis (FEP). We aimed to establish whether change in individual trajectories in cognition over 2 years of a sample of 159 FEP patients was reliable and clinically signifcant, using the reliable change index (RCI) and clinically signifcant change (CSC) methods. We also studied a sample of 151 matched healthy controls. Patients and controls were assessed with a set of neuropsychological tests, as well as premorbid, clinical and functionality measures. We analysed the course of cognitive measures over time, using analysis of variance, and the individual trajectories in the cognitive measures with the regression-based RCI (RCISRB) and the CSC. The RCISRB showed that between 5.4 and 31.2% of the patients showed deterioration patterns, and between 0.6 and 8.8% showed improvement patterns in these tests over time. Patients showing better cognitive profles according to RCISRB (worsening in zero to two cognitive measures) showed better premorbid, clinical and functional profles than patients showing deterioration patterns in more than three tests. When combining RCISRB and CSC values, we found that less than 10% of patients showed improvement or deterioration patterns in executive function and attention measures. These results support the view that cognitive impairments are stable over the frst 2 years of illness, but also that the analysis of individual trajectories could help to identify a subgroup of patients with particular phenotypes, who may require specifc interventions.