A comparative study of verbal fluency in patients with paranoid schizophrenia, first grade relatives and healthy controls

Introduction. Cognitive impairment is a key symptom of schizophrenia and is known to be due to neurodevelopment changes. The aim of our study was to compare verbal fluency of patients with paranoid schizophrenia (PSch), first grade relatives (FGR) and healthy control subjects (HC) and to find additional risk factors for poor verbal fluency test performances in cases with PSch. Material and methods. 108 PSch (66 males, 44 females, mean age 38.86±10.02 y), 58 FGR (30 males, 28 females, mean age 36.71±11.74 y) and 60 HC (37 males, 23 females, mean age 35.68±11.36 y) were studied during the period 2015-2017 at the Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, University Hospital Pleven, Bulgaria. After giving informed consent, they underwent full somatic and neurological examinations and fulfilled Isaac’s Set Test (IST) and K, A, M, E literal fluency test (LF). Results. PSch obtained lower scores on both LF and IST than other two groups. FGR had poor performance only on LF. Ageing, level of formal education, severity and duration of schizophrenia were associated with LF and IST performances. Conclusions. PSch show significant LF and semantic fluency difficulties. FGR have only LF changes. Verbal fluency is related to ageing, formal education, duration and severity of schizophrenia.