The influence of demographic factors on functional capacity and everyday functional outcomes in schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia have impaired everyday living and social outcomes. Performance-based measures, including neuropsychological (NP) performance and functional capacity (FC) measures have demonstrated usefulness in predicting these outcomes. We examined the correlation of demographic factors (race, age, and education) and FC measures, and the relative ability of NP performance, FC, and demographic factors to predict real-world outcomes in social, vocational, and residential domains in 194 outpatients with schizophrenia. Age, education, sex, and racial status were significantly, but modestly, associated with performance-based measures of everyday functioning, while, in addition, age and education had a similar modest relationship with social competence. Age, but none of the other demographic variables, contributed to the prediction of all three domains of everyday functioning. Functional capacity variables predicted everyday outcomes even when demographic variables were entered into a predictive equation first. These data suggest a similar and modest but detectable effect of demographic factors on performance-based measures of functional capacity as seen with NP performance in schizophrenia populations. Older age contributed to poorer everyday functioning even after consideration of functional capacity, which seems similar to findings in healthy populations without clinically notable cognitive decline.