Variables neuropsicológicas y psicopatológicas moduladoras del Insight cognitivo en personas con esquizofrenia

Abstract

Cognitive Insight is the ability of subjects to evaluate their own beliefs and correct them in case they are found to be wrong. It is evaluated through Beck’s Cognitive Insight Scale (EICB) obtaining two indices: Self-reflection and Self-confidence. In people with schizophrenia, attempts have been made to establish their relationship with the psychopathological state and neurocognitive functioning, without consistent results to date. The concept has also been applied to healthy subjects, although in a more limited way, yielding also contradictory results. The aim of this paper was to deepen the relationship between cognitive insight, neurocognitive performance, mood and anxiety in people with schizophrenia and examine the differences with healthy subjects, in order to estimate the psychopathological and neurocognitive profiles of both groups. To do this, a neuropsychological battery with memory tests, executive functioning, verbal fluidity, motor speed and processing, EICB and two scales for measuring depression (Beck Depression Scale) was applied and anxiety (Beck Anxiety Scale), a sample of 43 patients with schizophrenia and another of 50 healthy subjects. The results show that in people with schizophrenia Self-reflection is mainly mediated by executive functions, while in the case of healthy subjects the influence of clinical variables is more relevant. This concludes the existence of cognitive and clinical patterns that mediate cognitive insight differently in both groups.