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Abstract
The purpose of this project was to assess the utility of a card sorting task in evaluating the potential for persons with a severe and debilitating disorder in benefitting from psychiatric rehabilitation efforts. This was done through exploration of relationships between the card sorting task, other neurocognitive measures, and various clinical and demographic characteristics.
Card sorting tasks appear to be sensitive to detecting impairments in skills acquisition, problem solving, memory (i.e., short-term, working), and attention (Green, 1993; Goldman-Rakic, 1994), all of which are essential to psychosocial rehabilitation. As a corollary of this sensitivity, the card sorting task may have prognostic and diagnostic value in decision making with its sensitivity to cognitive changes within a treatment setting.
Eighty subjects with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia or depression were assessed on various neurocognitive, clinical, and social-behavioral functioning measures. The ANOVA statistics on neurocognitive, clinical, and social-behavioral measures revealed that long-term patients had more baseline cognitive impairment than short-term patients, but were more stable with respect to clinical status and social-behavioral functioning. Learners improved their card sorting performance with the aid of instructional cues more than nonlearners and these improvements accompanied changes in other neurocognitive measures. A significant relationship was found between card sorting performance and changes in cognitive and clinical domains. Further, neurocognitive assessments from Time 1 predicted changes in clinical status and social-behavioral functioning. Results provide evidence for the utility of neurocognitive assessments as predictors of change and in choosing between them on the basis of validity and efficiency as well as distinguishing those likely to benefit from psychiatric rehabilitation.
