Becker Angelika Beate Christiane, Lüken Luisa Marie, Kelker Lea, Holtmann Martin, Daseking Monika, Legenbauer Tanja
Department of Educational Psychology, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Federal Armed Forces, 22043 Hamburg, Germany.
LWL University Hospital for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Ruhr University Bochum, 59071 Hamm, Germany.
Children (Basel). 2022 May 21;9(5):756. doi: 10.3390/children9050756.
The prevalence of substance abuse is high during adolescence, and several studies have linked the use of alcohol and cannabis in adolescence to different cognitive impairments. To investigate whether specific cognitive deficits can be observed in adolescents with substance use disorder (SUD), we compared the cognitive profiles of inpatient adolescents diagnosed with SUD to a control group matched for sex, age and educational status. The inpatient adolescents received diagnoses of cannabis use disorder, alcohol use disorder or both. We compared the WISC-V profiles of 22 inpatients (45.5% female, M: 14.5; SD: 0.8) and the WAIS-IV profiles of 27 inpatients (44.4% female, M: 17.1; SD: 0.9) to 49 matched control participants with no diagnosed SUD. At the time of testing, participants were hospitalized for treatment of their SUD and were abstinent for a period of at least 6 weeks. To gain greater power, we jointly analyzed the Verbal Comprehension Index, Working Memory Index, Processing Speed Index and Full Scale IQ as assessed by WISC-V and WAIS-IV. The clinical group performed significantly worse than the control group on all the above indices. When only the group of inpatients was observed, in a model with the factors sex, educational status, presence of a comorbid diagnosis of depression and the number of comorbid diagnoses, only the factor educational status was significantly associated with the Full Scale IQ, whereas the factors sex and a comorbid diagnosis of depression in this group were associated with the Processing Speed Index. The results show that adolescents diagnosed with SUD (cannabis and/or alcohol) display broad cognitive impairments after 6 weeks of abstinence. Future research is required to further explore the role of comorbid diagnoses.
物质滥用在青少年时期的发生率很高，多项研究已将青少年饮酒和吸食大麻与不同的认知障碍联系起来。为了调查患有物质使用障碍（SUD）的青少年是否存在特定的认知缺陷，我们将诊断为SUD的住院青少年的认知概况与在性别、年龄和教育程度上相匹配的对照组进行了比较。住院青少年被诊断为大麻使用障碍、酒精使用障碍或两者兼有。我们将22名住院患者（45.5%为女性，平均年龄：14.5岁；标准差：0.8）的韦氏儿童智力量表第五版（WISC-V）概况和27名住院患者（44.4%为女性，平均年龄：17.1岁；标准差：0.9）的韦氏成人智力量表第四版（WAIS-IV）概况与49名未诊断出SUD的匹配对照参与者进行了比较。在测试时，参与者因SUD住院治疗，且已戒酒至少6周。为了获得更强的效力，我们联合分析了由WISC-V和WAIS-IV评估的言语理解指数、工作记忆指数、处理速度指数和全量表智商。临床组在上述所有指标上的表现均显著低于对照组。仅观察住院患者组时，在一个包含性别、教育程度、是否合并抑郁症诊断以及合并诊断数量等因素的模型中，只有教育程度这一因素与全量表智商显著相关，而该组中的性别因素和合并抑郁症诊断与处理速度指数相关。结果表明，被诊断为SUD（大麻和/或酒精）的青少年在戒酒6周后表现出广泛的认知障碍。未来需要进一步研究以探讨合并诊断的作用。
