B A Benjamin
Level of literacy in the nurses aide population. Baseline data for nursing staff development
Journal of nursing staff development : JNSD
h3contexth3 focusing potentially localizable cognitive impairments schizophrenia metaanalytic literature overlooked largest single impairment digit symbol coding tasks h3objectiveh3 compare magnitude schizophrenia impairment coding tasks impairments traditional neuropsychological instruments h3data sourcesh3 medline psycinfo electronic databases reference lists identified articles h3study selectionh3 englishlanguage studies 1990 present comparing performance patients schizophrenia healthy controls coding tasks cognitive measures representing least 2 cognitive domains 182 studies identified 40 met criteria inclusion metaanalysis h3data extractionh3 means standard deviations sample sizes extracted digit symbol coding 36 cognitive variables addition recorded potential clinical moderator variables including chronicityseverity medication status age education potential study design moderators including coding task variant matching study publication date h3data synthesish3 main analyses synthesized data 37 studies comprising 1961 patients schizophrenia 1444 comparison subjects combination mean effect sizes across studies means random effects model yielded weighted mean effect digit symbol coding ofigi 157 95 confidence interval 166 148 effect compared grand mean effect ofigi 098 significantly larger effects widely used measures episodic memory executive functioning working memory moderator variable analyses indicated clinical study design differences studies little effect coding task effect comparison previous metaanalyses suggested current results representative broader literature subsidiary analysis data relatives patients schizophrenia also suggested prominent coding task impairments group h3conclusionh3 5minute digit symbol coding task reliable easy administer taps information processing inefficiency central feature cognitive deficit schizophrenia deserves systematic investigation