Abstrakt
Cognitive reserve (CR) has been conceptualized as an individual's ability to optimize or maximize performance through differential recruitment of brain networks. As such, CR may contribute to the heterogeneity of cognitive deficit observed in schizophrenia.
This study aimed to explore the relationship between cognitive reserve, cognitive performance and quality of life in patients with first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorder. A total of 137 patients with an ICD-10 schizophrenia or acute and transient psychotic disorders diagnosis and 62 healthy controls completed a comprehensive assessment of six cognitive domains: speed of processing, attention, working memory, verbal memory, visual memory, and abstraction/executive functioning.
CR was calculated from participants' employment, highest attained education, parental education, and premorbid IQ. Results suggested that, in patients, CR was positively related to cognitive performance in all domains other than speed of processing, explaining 50.6% of the variance observed in cognition overall.
Effects of CR in the control group were limited to two domains (abstraction/ executive function and working memory) and explained up to 25.3% of the variance observed. These results suggest that CR largely contributes to the cognitive variations present in first-episode patients.
In addition, CR was negatively related to the social construct of patients' quality of life, and positively to symptom severity, and general functioning.