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Laurence M. Binder, Daniel Storzbach, W. Kent Anger,
Keith A. Campbell, Diane S. Rohlman and other members of PEHRC
Portland Environmental Hazards Research Center (PEHRC)
The ability of patients to accurately report symptoms is
of substantial clinical importance, and there is evidence that subjective
cognitive difficulties and objective cognitive performance are not strongly
related. Previous studies from a variety of populations show that cognitive
symptoms are at least as strongly related to negative affect as they are
to objective cognitive problems. We examined subjective cognitive complaints,
affective distress, and cognitive performance in Persian Gulf veterans
who reported illness. We predicted that there would be a stronger relationship
between subjective cognitive complaints and affective distress than between
subjective cognitive complaints and objective cognitive performance. Items
selected from the SCL90-R provided a subjective measure of cognitive complaints.
Two board-certified neuropsychologists reviewed the SCL90-R items to select
the items which assessed cognitive complaints, according to both raters.
Based on correlations between our subjective cognitive complaints scale
and the Beck Depression and Anxiety Scales, the correlational value of
.60 best expressed the relationship between subjective cognitive complaints
and affective distress. In our analysis, we compared this value of .60
to the correlations of the subjective cognitive scale with our cognitive
measures. Cohen's q for each variable was computed from the r to z transformation
of the correlations between the subjective cognitive complaints scale
and each cognitive variable subtracted from the r to z transformation
of .60.
Our computerized battery of cognitive tests consisted of
measures of digit span forward and backward, reaction time, a symbol digit
coding task, a supraspan digit learning task, a forced choice measure
of recognition memory, and a selective attention measure.
The prediction was confirmed in a sample of 126 veterans.
The values of q shown were all significant, p < .01, indicating a stronger
relationship between subjective cognitive complaints and affective distress
than between subjective cognitive complaints and any of the cognitive
variables.
"Keywords:" Memory Cognition Persian Gulf War
veteran
This work was supported by a grant from the Department of
Veterans Affairs to the PEHRC, a joint project of the Portland Veterans
Affairs Medical Center and the Center for Research on Occupational and
Environmental Toxicology, Oregon Health Sciences University. |
