Impact of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression on neuropsychological functioning in electrical injury survivors

To examine neuropsychological functioning in survivors of electrical injury with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. This was a prospective research study that was done in an outpatient clinic of a rehabilitation hospital. Thirty participants were recruited for the study between January 2008 and December 2010. All participants completed questionnaires measuring depression, PTSD, and a series of standardized psychometric measures of neuropsychological functioning. Domains tested included verbal and visual memory, attention, and executive functioning. A correlation analysis was performed to explore association between variables. Based on the level of PTSD symptoms, subjects were divided into three groups: no PTSD, subclinical PTSD, and PTSD, and a series of one-way analyses of variance were done to explore this association further. A series of analyses of covariance were done to control for depression. PTSD had a significant (P < .05) negative association with immediate verbal memory and immediate and delayed visual memory. Subjects with PTSD had significantly (P < .05) worse scores on immediate and delayed verbal memory and visual memory than those with subclinical PTSD or no PTSD. Measures of attention, working memory, and executive functioning were not significantly different between PTSD groups. When depression was introduced as a covariate, verbal and visual memory scores were not significantly different between PTSD groups. The findings suggest that there is a negative association between PTSD and cognitive performance that may be related to depression among those with electrical injury. A larger sample size is warranted to explore this further.