Logo image
Back
Logical reasoning deficits and severity of delusional symptomatology in psychotic disorders
Thesis   Open access

Logical reasoning deficits and severity of delusional symptomatology in psychotic disorders

Colin J. Gallagher
Master of Science (M.S.), Drexel University
Oct 2013
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/etd-4465
pdf
Gallagher_Colin_20134.24 MBDownloadView
PDF Open Access Open Access (License Unspecified)

Abstract

Reasoning (Psychology)--Delusions Psychology Schizophrenia
Research in psychotic disorders has recently been focused on identifying early indicators of future symptomatology. Our study aimed to establish a model for the relationship of a test of logical reasoning, moderated by belief inflexibility, for predicting delusional symptomatology. As part of the Neurodevelopment in Adolescence and Young Adulthood (NAYA) study, the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (CNB) was administered to three groups: individuals with a psychotic disorder (PD) (N = 17), individuals at high-risk for a psychotic disorder (HR) (N = 26), and individuals at lowrisk for a psychotic disorder (LR) (N = 19). The Penn Conditional Exclusion Task(PCET) was specifically examined through the use of its measures of accuracy and perseverative errors to see its predictive ability for delusional symptomatology as measured by the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and the Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (SOPS) Positive Symptoms Subscale. Results indicated small to large effect sizes for group differences on PCET outcome variables, and evidence of a moderation relationship was also found for the PD and HR group tests. Possible implications of these findings are that the PCET can be used to predict the course of delusional symptomatology. The development of a psychotic symptoms scale that takes into account the range of symptoms from the prodromal to post-onset stages is necessary to accurately test such possible predictor models.

Metrics

24 File views/ downloads
31 Record Views

Details

Logo image