title: Non-selective impairment of Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance in patients with schizophrenia.
abstract: Sixty-two schizophrenic patients and 26 healthy volunteers were administered the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) a task putatively specific for frontal functions and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the presence of specific frontal lobe deficits in the course of schizophrenia and the capacity of these tasks to discriminate between patients and controls. Schizophrenic patients showed a poorer performance than control subjects in both tests. No evidence emerged to support a higher discriminant power for the WCST in identifying schizophrenic subjects from healthy controls compared with the WAIS. Our data suggest that the deficit in WCST performance is not selective, but rather part of a more generalized neuropsychological impairment in schizophrenic patients.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychiatry, IRCCS, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dieci
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vita
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Silenzi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caputo
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Comazzi
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ghiringhelli
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mezzetti
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tenconi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Invernizzi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019965:Neurocognitive Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D011594:Psychometrics; D012016:Reference Values; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D014888:Wechsler Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data