[Cognitive processes in patients with different structure of anxiety disorders].

AIM

To study the relationship between cognitive functions and psychopathological disturbances in anxiety disorders.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

WAIS, the modified Witkin's Embedded figures test, a symptom scale (Yu.A. Aleksandrovsky et al. 1984) were administered to 111 patients, including 37 with generalized anxiety disorders (GAD, ICD-10 F41.1), 36 with anxiety-phobic disorders (AFD, ICD-10 F40) and 38 with anxiety-hypochondriac disorders (AHD, ICD-10 F45.2), and to 114 healthy people.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

A distinct trend towards an increase of cognitive impairment depending on an increase in the complicity of psychopathological picture was observed as follows: GAD - AFD - AHD. A decrease in visual-motor coordination and visual attention was found in patients with GAD. In AFD patients, besides disturbances characteristic of GAD, there was a decrease on the WAIS Vocabulary subtest. In AHD patients, there was a decrease in analytic and synthetic abilities. The heterogeneity of changes in cognitive processes and the structure of their correlations with psychopathological symptoms in anxiety disorders was revealed as follows: a decrease in some parameters of cognitive processes in anxiety disorders with mild structure, an increase in cognitive dysfunction and in a number of correlations in anxiety disorders with more complex psychopathological picture, higher scores on the WAIS Block design task.