[Neuropsychological aspects of delusional disorders. Characteristic attributional style or cognitive deficit?].

BACKGROUND

"Pure" delusional disorders are clinically rare, and the neuropsychology of such disorders is poorly understood. Whereas "deficit" models suggest a cognitive impairment accounting for the incorrigible fixation of false beliefs, cognitive models propose the existence of a characteristic attributional style in patients to stabilise a fragile self.

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

The cognitive flexibility and attributional style of 21 patients diagnosed with delusional disorder according to ICD-10 were compared with a group of healthy controls paralleled for age, sex, education, and intelligence.

RESULTS

Patients with delusional disorders made more errors and more perseverative errors in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test compared with controls. However, these differences were only significant in patients with a comorbid depression. In contrast to earlier studies, patients with delusional disorders did not attribute negative events to external or personal causes more often than healthy controls, but partly tended to show a depressive attributional style.

CONCLUSION

Our results do not support either a cognitive deficit in patients with delusional disorders or a characteristic attributional style. In terms of treatment recommendations, a thorough diagnosis of comorbid depressive disorders in patients with delusional disorders is warranted.