Cognitive dysfunctions in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder compared to the patients with schizophrenia patients: relation to overvalued ideas.
OBJECTIVE
The clinical overlaps between schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) seem to be related to thought disorders involving obsessions, overvalued ideas, and delusions. Overvalued ideas are beliefs falling in between obsessions and delusions and are stronger than obsessions but weaker than delusions. The goal of the present study was to compare patients with OCD to those with schizophrenia in terms of cognitive functions and to relate cognition and overvalued ideas in OCD.


METHODS
Twenty three patients with OCD (free of depression), 24 patients with schizophrenia, and 22 healthy subjects matched to patients in age, gender, education, and hand dominance were included in the study. All subjects were administered neurocognitive tests assessing verbal learning-memory, executive functions, verbal fluency, attention and verbal working memory.


RESULTS
Patients with schizophrenia showed worse performance on cognitive tests than the OCD and control groups. The severity of overvalued ideas was significantly correlated to cognitive functions in the OCD group. There were no significant differences in cognitive functions between schizophrenia group and the OCD patients who had higher scores on the Overvalued Ideas Scale (OVIS).


CONCLUSIONS
Overvalued ideas in OCD may be related to cognitive dysfunctions in OCD and this subtype of OCD may have similar characteristics to schizophrenia in terms of cognition.
Kitis
Arzu
A
Department of Psychiatry, Medical School of Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey.
Akdede
Berna Binnur Kivircik
BB
Alptekin
Koksal
K
Akvardar
Yildiz
Y
Arkar
Haluk
H
Erol
Almila
A
Kaya
Nezaket
N
D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D014706:Verbal Learning