The screen for cognitive impairment in psychiatry: diagnostic-specific standardization in psychiatric ill patients

Juana Gómez-Benito, Georgina Guilera, Óscar Pino, Emilio Rojo, Rafael Tabarés-Seisdedos, Gemma Safont, Anabel Martínez-Arán, Manuel Franco, Manuel J Cuesta, Benedicto Crespo-Facorro, Miguel Bernardo, Eduard Vieta, Scot E Purdon, Francisco Mesa, Javier Rejas, the Spanish Working Group in Cognitive Function

BACKGROUND: The Screen for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP) is a simple and easy to administer scale developed for screening cognitive deficits. This study presents the diagnostic-specific standardization data for this scale in a sample of schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder patients. METHODS: Patients between 18 and 55 years who are in a stable phase of the disease, diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, schizophreniform disorder, or bipolar I disorder were enrolled in this study. RESULTS: The SCIP-S was administered to 514 patients (57.9% male), divided into two age groups (18--39 and 40--55 years) and two educational level groups (less than and secondary or higher education). The performance of the patients on the SCIP-S is described and the transformed scores for each SCIP-S subtest, as well as the total score on the instrument, are presented as a percentile, z-score, T-scores, and IQ quotient. CONCLUSIONS: We present the first jointly developed benchmarks for a cognitive screening test exploring functional psychosis (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder), which provide increased information about patient's cognitive abilities. Having guidelines for interpreting SCIP-S scores represents a step forward in the clinical utility of this instrument and adds valuable information for its use.