Summary: Researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have developed a brief, 20-minute assessment battery to evaluate cognitive function in people with schizophrenia.
Source: UAB
Researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), in collaboration with the University of Oviedo and the Biomedical Research Networking Centre in Mental Health (CIBERSAM), have developed a concise test to evaluate cognitive capacities in patients with schizophrenia. This brief battery of assessments—designed to be completed in 20 minutes or less—measures short-term memory, mental processing speed, executive and organizational abilities, and other cognitive domains relevant to everyday functioning.
The project, part of the doctoral work of Sílvia Zaragoza Domingo, was informed by a six-month multicenter study involving 257 professionals and a representative sample of 700 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia across Spain. The initiative, named EPICOG-SCH, established a four-test battery that clinicians can use to screen cognitive impact efficiently in stable outpatients.
One of the major advantages of the EPICOG-SCH battery is its practicality. The included subtests are well-known, widely available, and already in the repertoire of many mental health professionals, which facilitates rapid adoption in both public and private clinics. The measures are available in several languages, making them useful for diverse patient populations. Because the battery is brief and easy to administer, it can fit into routine clinical appointments, enabling health professionals to identify and monitor cognitive deficits that often go unassessed in standard psychiatric care.
“For people living with schizophrenia, maintaining independence and everyday functioning is a key goal, but cognitive difficulties can limit achievement of that goal,” explains Sílvia Zaragoza. “This test helps to clarify individual cognitive profiles so clinicians can tailor rehabilitation and support. For example, a patient with slowed mental processing but intact short-term memory may need different interventions than a patient whose memory is also impaired.”
Because the battery is suitable for routine use, clinics can perform an initial baseline assessment and then track changes over time. This makes it possible to monitor whether medication changes or other treatments affect attention, memory, or processing speed—common concerns reported by patients during follow-up visits.
The EPICOG-SCH battery will be further developed and commercialized by Psyncro (Neuropsychological Research Organization sl), a company founded by Sílvia Zaragoza. Her doctoral work was supervised and advised by CIBERSAM researchers from the UAB Department of Psychiatry, Antoni Bulbena and Víctor Pérez, with academic direction from professors Joan Vilalta and Manuel de Gracia.
Research and publication
The study validating EPICOG-SCH assessed 672 outpatients recruited from 234 centers and evaluated a brief battery composed of internationally available subtests that map onto functional outcomes: WAIS-III Letter-Number Sequencing (LNS), Category Fluency Test (CFT), Logical Memory Immediate Recall (LM), and Digit-Symbol Coding (DSC). Clinical severity and functional impairment were measured with standard scales. Composite scores were calculated, and the battery’s ability to discriminate levels of functional disability was analyzed using receiver-operating characteristic techniques.
The battery demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78). Cognitive performance differences across clinical severity levels ranged from approximately 0.5 to 1 standard deviation. The regression-weighted composite score showed fair accuracy for identifying patients with moderate disability (area under the curve > 0.70, p < 0.0001). Cut-off values provided a useful balance between sensitivity and specificity for screening purposes.
Overall, EPICOG-SCH proved to be a practical and efficient brief tool to screen the cognitive impact of schizophrenia in stable outpatients. Its composite score can complement clinical interviews to help predict potential functional outcomes and to monitor cognition during routine outpatient follow-up visits.
This summary is based on the EPICOG-SCH research led by Silvia Zaragoza Domingo and colleagues, published in Schizophrenia Research: Cognition (2017). The work presents a validated brief battery for screening cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and supports its use in clinical settings to guide individualized care and follow-up.