Background: Substance use is implicated in the cause and course of psychosis.
Aims: To characterise substance and alcohol use in an epidemiologically representative treatment sample of people experiencing a first psychotic episode in south Cambridgeshire.
Method: Current and lifetime substance use was recorded for 123 consecutive referrals to a specialist early intervention service.
Background: Demonstrating specific cognitive impairments in psychotic disorders is difficult. However, specific deficits in memory and executive functions have often been claimed. The Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) tasks of IDED attention-shifting (an executive task) and visuospatial paired associates learning (PAL, a memory task) require intact frontal and temporo-hippocampal functioning, respectively; both have been suggested as markers of disease progress in psychosis.
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