Prevalence of Working Memory Impairment in Drug Naive Schizophrenic Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which clear consciousness and the intellectual capacity are usually maintained, although certain cognitive deficits may evolve in the course of illness. Working memory impairment in schizophrenia affects the course, outcome, and quality of life of the patient significantly. The aim of the study was to find out the prevalence of working memory impairment in drug naive schizophrenic patients.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was done in a tertiary care hospital, from June 2015 to December 2015 after taking ethical clearance from institutional review board registration number 38970/062/063. Convenience sampling was done. The samples of 30 schizophrenic patients between the ages of 15 to 45 years were enrolled from the inpatient and outpatient unit of department according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data was collected and entry was done in Epi Info, point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data.

The prevalence of working memory impairment was 26 (86.7%) in digit span forward test and 27 (90%) in digit span backward test. The mean age of patients was 27.5 years and the age of onset of schizophrenia was mainly in the age group between 16 to 25 years 16 (53.3%).

These finding suggests high prevalence of working memory impairment in schizophrenic patients.