خلاصة:
Objectives: Patients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) show poor cognitive performance during neuropsychological tests. Literature is scarce regarding veterans suffering with chronic PTSD. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to compare the cognitive deficiencies of veterans with chronic PTSD with those of healthy participants.
Methods: A total of 51 hospitalized veterans and 45 healthy individuals were selected using a purposeful sampling method. Both groups performed a simple Stroop Test and the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) and completed the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5).
Results: The results of independent samples t-test showed a significant difference in cognitive impairment between the veterans with PTSD and healthy subjects, and the veterans had lower performances on most aspects of the tests than that of the control group.
Discussion: According to our results, veterans with chronic PTSD showed lower cognitive performance than that of healthy individuals. This suggests that examination of the cognitive functioning of patients with PTSD can be useful in the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of PTSD.
ملخص الجهاز:
Research Paper: Executive Function and Attention Deficits in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Study on Iranian War Veterans Rajab Samadi1, Emran Mohammad Razaghi Kashani1, Maryam Kami2, Omid Rezaei3* 1.
Executive Function and Attention Deficits in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Study on Iranian War Veterans.
1. 17 Article info: Received: 05 Oct. 2017 Accepted: 01 Jan. 2018 Keywords: PTSD, Disabled veteran, Executive functions, Attention A B S T R A C T Objectives: Patients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) show poor cognitive performance during neuropsychological tests.
Results: The results of independent samples t-test showed a significant difference in cognitive impairment between the veterans with PTSD and healthy subjects, and the veterans had lower performances on most aspects of the tests than that of the control group.
Patients with PTSD experience a group of symptoms, such as hyperarousal, re-experiencing, avoidance, and numb- ness after experiencing a traumatic event; patients with PTSD respond to these kind of experiences with fear and * Corresponding Author: Omid Rezaei, MD Address: Psychosis Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Patients with PTSD experience difficulties with differ- ent aspects of executive functioning, such as divided attention, cognitive flexibility, attentional control, inhi- bition, concentration, working memory, and planning [11–14].
What is important here is the overall difference be- tween the two groups in their performance on the Stroop Test that indicated lower cognitive inhibition in veterans with PTSD than that of the control subjects.