Schizophrenic patients subjective experience of perceptual-cognitive symptoms:: Correlations with verbal memory deficits and psychopathology

Although subjectively experienced deficits may improve the understanding and treatment of schizophrenia, our knowledge of these deficits is fragmentary We assessed subjectively experienced perceptual and cognitive symptoms in schizophrenic patients (N = 42) by means of the Eppendorfer Schizophrenie Inventar (ESI) and correlated them with factor analytically derived dimensions of verbal memory performance in the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT). In addition, the patients' psychopathological symptoms were rated with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). We found a significant correlation between the ESI-subscale Attention/Speech Deficits and the CVLT-factor Discriminability/Working Memory (r(s) = -.38). Almost all ESI-subscales correlated significantly with the positive and the global subscale of the PANSS (.32 <= r <= .66), but not with the negative subscale. A higher-order partial correlation with the PANSS-subscales as covaniates confirmed the association between the ESI-subscale Attention/Speech Deficits and the CVLT-factor Discriminability/Working Memory independent from psychopathology (r = -.40). Our findings demonstrate that self-rated perceptual and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia correlate with observer-rated positive symptoms, whereas correlations with objectively measured neuropsychological deficits appear to be more specific.