Understanding the burden of cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia: Results from the international LUCIA study.

BACKGROUND

Cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS) is a prevalent, meaningful feature of schizophrenia with limited real-world data on its recognition and care setting impact. The LUCIA initiative is an international multi-stakeholder study that explored awareness, assessment practices, and the burden of CIAS to inform future care pathways.

METHODS

A three phase, Delphi-informed design was applied, comprising expert interviews to frame the enquiry, qualitative interviews with health and social care professionals (HCPs; n = 74) and caregiver advocates (n = 11), two waves of a Delphi survey among HCPs (n=449 and 343, respectively) and one round among 61 patients and 112 caregivers across 15 countries (n = 964).

RESULTS

The results showed poor awareness of CIAS across stakeholders. Structured cognitive assessment was infrequent, and clinicians largely relied on the dementia oriented Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) rather than schizophrenia specific tools, citing time, training, and unclear actionability as key barriers. CIAS imposed broad humanistic, clinical, societal, and economic burden - poorer quality of life, social isolation, higher comorbidities, increased hospital days and health care costs, and heavy informal care. Consensus actions prioritized the development of brief, validated screening instruments, improved psychoeducation, and accelerated research into effective pharmacological and non pharmacological interventions.

CONCLUSIONS

These results provide additional evidence for the under-recognition of CIAS worldwide, despite its substantial multidimensional societal burden. The use of dementia-oriented cognitive tests carries significant risks of misclassification and inappropriate management. Therefore, improving awareness, implementing assessment guidelines, and accelerating therapeutic innovation is critical to improve the quality of life of CIAS patients and the wider community.