Self-perceived cognitive functioning does not correlate with objective measures of cognition in schizophrenia.

Background: Growing interest in the study of self-perceived cognitive deficits in schizophrenia has been recently observed. The authors validated in a previous study the Subjective Scale To Investigate Cognition into Schizophrenia Tunisian Arabic Version (SSTICS_tun_arab), a self-questionnaire established to collect cognitive complaints in patients with schizophrenia.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship between the SSTICS_tun_arab scores and objective cognitive performances.

[The concept of attention].

Background: Attention is a complex function which matches environment's information to the needs of the organism.

Aims: describe the different variety of attention, the attentionnel tests and attentional disorders in the psychiatric pathology.

Methods: review of literature on PUBMED.

[The Tunisian cognitive battery for patients with schizophrenia].

Background: Cognitive disorders are common and severe in schizophrenia. They are also correlated with the functional outcome of the disease. Cognition can not be assessed during a standard clinical interview but needs to be evaluated by means of specific cognitive tasks.

[Tunisian adaptation of Hopkins Verbal Learning Test , Form 1].

Background: Memory impairment and verbal learning are the most common cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia. Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) is considered to be the most reliable test to asses memory and verbal learning in this mental illness.

Aims: to create one form of the HVLT which would suit our linguistic and cultural context and to study the characteristics of this test in a group of healthy subjects.

[Evaluation of correlations between cognitive performances and clinical dimensions of schizophrenia].

Background: Schizophrenia is characterised by positive and negative symptoms as well as thought disorders and disorganised behaviour. Multiple cognitive deficits within the areas of memory, attention and executive functions are also associated with schizophrenia. Aim of the study was to proceed to a study of correlations between clinical dimensions of schizophrenia and cognitive functions.

[Cognitive remediation therapy in schizophrenia: a case report].

Background: Despite progress in chemo-therapeutics, schizophrenia remains a chronic disease with occurrence of residual symptoms and drug resistance in 60% of the cases. Besides, cognitive impairment is frequent and highly correlated to social dysfunction seen in patients with schizophrenia. Several cognitive remediation programs have been elaborated.

Confirmation for a delayed inhibition of return by systematic sampling in schizophrenia.

Inhibition of return (IOR) is a phenomenon thought to reflect a mechanism to protect the organism from redirecting attention to previously scanned insignificant locations. A number of studies reported altered IOR in schizophrenia patients with a reduction of its amplitude. However, incomplete sampling of stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) makes data on IOR time course incomplete.

The self-assessment scale of cognitive complaints in schizophrenia: a validation study in Tunisian population.

Background: Despite a huge well-documented literature on cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, little is known about the own perception of patients regarding their cognitive functioning. The purpose of our study was to create a scale to collect subjective cognitive complaints of patients suffering from schizophrenia with Tunisian Arabic dialect as mother tongue and to proceed to a validation study of this scale.

Methods: The authors constructed the Self-Assessment Scale of Cognitive Complaints in Schizophrenia (SASCCS) based on a questionnaire covering five cognitive domains which are the most frequently reported in the literature to be impaired in schizophrenia.