Background: Serious mental illness (SMI) represents a category of psychiatric disorders characterized by specific difficulties of personal and social functioning, derived from suffering severe and persistent mental health problems.
Aims: We wanted to look into differences in cognitive performance among different SMI patients.
Methods: Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) screening was applied in one sample of SMI patients (n = 149) and another of healthy comparison participants (n = 35). Within the SMI sample, three different subsamples were formed: one with 97 patients with schizophrenia, a second with 29 patients with mood disorders, and a third with 23 patients with personality disorder. We performed a comparative study within and between groups.
Results: Analysis of covariance was performed. Significant differences were found for cognitive functioning including attention and memory.
Conclusions: RBANS can be recommended for the detection of neurocognitive deficits in psychiatric disorders, especially in Schizophrenia.
Keywords: Spanish; memory; mental health; neurocognitive; neuropsychology.