Multitasking abilities in psychosis: Assessment, cognitive correlates, and relations to real world functioning

Les personnes souffrant de schizophrénie ou d’un trouble bipolaire présentent des difficultés dans les activités de la vie quotidienne. Beaucoup d’activités quotidiennes sont multitâches, c’est-à-dire qu’elles sont complexes, doivent être réalisées dans un environnement peu structuré et nécessitent l’exécution de plusieurs sous-tâches. Les capacités de multitâches semblent essentielles à un bon fonctionnement quotidien. Cependant, elles n’ont jamais été correctement examinées dans la schizophrénie et le trouble bipolaire dû à l’absence d’outils satisfaisants. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’explorer les capacités de multitâche dans la schizophrénie et le trouble bipolaire par l’intermédiaire de deux tâches informatisées : une tâche de shopping et une tâche de préparation d’une réunion. Un objectif secondaire est d’examiner les soubassements cognitifs des capacités de multitâches ainsi que les relations entre ces capacités et le fonctionnement quotidien et la symptomatologie

Performance on an Everyday Life Activity in Persons Diagnosed with Alcohol Dependency Compared to Healthy Controls: Relations between a Computerized Shopping Task and Cognitive and Clinical Variables†

Aim: Persons diagnosed with alcohol dependency often suffer from cognitive impairments. Little is known, however, concerning how these cognitive deficits impact complex, everyday life activities. We set out to better characterize the nature of everyday life difficulties in patients with alcohol dependency using a computerized shopping task. Methods: A computerized real-life activity task (shopping task) required participants to shop for a list of eight grocery store items. Twenty individuals diagnosed with alcohol dependency and 20 healthy controls were administered a battery of cognitive tests, clinical scales and the shopping task. Results: Performance on the shopping task significantly differentiated patients and healthy controls for several variables and, in particular, for total time. Total time to complete the task correlated significantly with poor performance on measures of processing speed, verbal episodic memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibition. Total time was significantly correlated with poorer everyday life functioning and longer duration of illness. Conclusion: This computerized task is a good proxy measure of the level of everyday life and cognitive functioning of persons diagnosed with alcohol dependenc

Multitasking capacities in persons diagnosed with schizophrenia: A preliminary examination of their neurocognitive underpinnings and ability to predict real world functioning

peer reviewedBackground: Difficulties in everyday life activities are core features of persons diagnosed with schizophrenia. Moreover, patients seem to demonstrate particular difficulties during complex and multitasking activities, such as cooking a meal (Semkovska et al., 2004). Multitasking refers to activities where the person has to: carry out and alternate between different tasks that vary in terms of priority, difficulty and duration; define the tasks’ targets; and where the person is faced with unexpected problems during the realization of these tasks (Burgess, 2000). However, at present, patients’ multitasking capacities have not been adequately examined in the literature due to an absence of suitable assessment strategies. We thus recently developed a computerized real-life activity task designed to take into account the complex and multitasking nature of certain everyday life activities where participants are required to prepare a room for a meeting – the Computerized Meeting Preparation Task (CMPT) Methods: Twenty-one individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and 20 matched healthy controls completed the CMPT. During the CMPT, participants found themselves in a virtual room that they had to prepare for a meeting while respecting a list of instructions (the placement of the guests, the needed objects, the desired drinks, etc.). Patients were also evaluated with an extensive cognitive battery (assessing executive functions, attention, processing speed and memory), measures of symptomatology and real world functioning. To examine the ecological validity of the CMPT, 14 others patients were recruited and were given the computerized version and a real version of the meeting preparation task. Results: Results demonstrated that performance on the CMPT significantly differentiated patients and healthy controls for the total time to complete task, planning efficiency, and the respect of the instructions. Moreover, these variables were significantly correlated with executive functioning (i.e. cognitive flexibility and planning), suggesting the major implication of these cognitive processes in multitasking activities. Performance on the CMPT also significantly predicted up to 50% of real world functioning. Finally, performances on the computerized version and the real version of the meeting preparation task were highly correlated, suggesting good ecological validity. Discussion: In this study, we created a novel task involving the multitasking nature of real world activities. The results demonstrated that this approach provides a good indication of the real world functioning in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Moreover, results suggest a particular implication of executive functioning in multitasking activities. These findings suggest the importance of evaluating multitasking capacities in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia in order to predict real world functioning

A Cross-National Investigation of Hallucination-Like Experiences in 10 Countries: The E-CLECTIC Study

Hallucination-like experiences (HLEs) are typically defined as sensory perceptions in the absence of external stimuli. Multidimensional tools, able to assess different facets of HLEs, are helpful for a better characterization of hallucination proneness and to investigate the cross-national variation in the frequencies of HLEs. The current study set out to establish the validity, factor structure, and measurement invariance of the Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale-Extended (LSHS-E), a tool to assess HLEs. A total of 4419 respondents from 10 countries were enrolled. Network analyses between the LSHS-E and the 3 dimensions of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) were performed to assess convergent and divergent validity of the LSHS-E. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test its measurement invariance. The best fit was a 4-factor model, which proved invariant by country and clinical status, indicating cross-national stability of the hallucination-proneness construct. Among the different components of hallucination-proneness, auditory-visual HLEs had the strongest association with the positive dimension of the CAPE, compared with the depression and negative dimensions. Participants who reported a diagnosis of a mental disorder scored higher on the 4 LSHS-E factors. Small effect size differences by country were found in the scores of the 4 LSHS-E factors even after taking into account the role of socio-demographic and clinical variables. Due to its good psychometric properties, the LSHS-E is a strong candidate tool for large investigations of HLEs

Brief Assessment of Schizotypal Traits: A Multinational Study

The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B) was developed with the aim of examining variations in healthy trait schizotypy, as well as latent vulnerability to psychotic-spectrum disorders. No previous study has studied the cross-cultural validity of the SPQ-B in a large cross-national sample. The main goal of the present study was to analyze the reliability and the internal structure of SPQ-B scores in a multinational sample of 28,426 participants recruited from 14 countries. The mean age was 22.63 years (SD = 7.08; range 16-68 years), 37.7% (n = 10,711) were men. The omega coefficients were high, ranging from 0.86 to 0.92 for the total sample. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that SPQ-B items were grouped either in a theoretical structure of three first-order factors (Cognitive-Perceptual, Interpersonal, and Disorganized) or in a bifactor model (three first-order factors plus a general factor of schizotypal personality). In addition, the results supported configural but not strong measurement invariance of SPQ-B scores across samples. These findings provide new information about the factor structure of schizotypal personality, and support the validity and utility of the SPQ-B, a brief and easy tool for assessing self-reported schizotypal traits, in cross-national research. Theoretical and clinical implications for diagnostic systems, psychosis models, and cross-national mental health strategies are derived from these results