Detection of neuropsychological impairment among substance-abusing patients: accuracy of the neurobehavioral cognitive status examination.
The accuracy of the Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Examination (NCSE) in detecting the presence of cognitive impairment among substance-abusing patients was examined. The NCSE and the Neuropsychological Screening Battery (NSB), which has been shown in previous studies to discriminate reliably between cognitively impaired and intact substance-abusing patients, were administered to 51 detoxified patients. Using participants' performances on the NSB as the criterion measure, 22 (43%) were found to be cognitively impaired. The NCSE identified only 8 of these 22 patients (36%) as being impaired; additionally, 4 of the 29 patients found to be cognitively intact by the NSB (14%) were classified as impaired by the NCSE. Thus, the false-negative rate of the NCSE is too high to recommend its use with substance-abusing patients.
Fals-Stewart
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Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA. falste@harvard.harvard.edu
D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition / Q000187:drug effects*; D004644:Emotions; D005188:False Negative Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*