memory impairment in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with and without psychosis: a comparative study

Background: cognitive impairment is a common symptom in both schizophrenia (sz) and bipolar disorder (bd), and studies have demonstrated memory impairment in patients with these disorders. objectives: to compare memory impairment in patients with sz, bd with psychosis, and bd without psychosis. materials & methods: this study was a cross-sectional study conducted on 42 patients referred to shafa hospital in rasht, iran. patients were examined in 3 groups of 14 people each (sz, bd with psychosis, and bd without psychosis). the study tools included a demographic information questionnaire, a brief psychiatric rating scale (bprs), and wechsler’s memory scale (wms) for adults. the obtained data were analyzed by spss version 21 using the 1-way analysis of variance (anova). results: the mean bprs scores in patients with sz (47.28) was higher than that in bd with psychosis (43.93) and bd without psychosis (23.14). anova results showed a significant difference between patients with sz and bd without psychosis (p=0.001), as well as bd with psychosis and bd without psychosis (p=0.001). also, there was a statistically significant difference in the mean wms scores between patients with sz (62.07) and bd with psychosis (76.57) (p=0.009) and between sz and bd without psychosis (73.5) (p=0.047). bprs and wms scores in sz and bd without psychosis patients had a negative correlation. conclusion: the results showed that sz is associated with weaker memory than bd, and a history of psychosis does not have a significant effect on memory function in patients with bd.