Clinical usefulness of the screen for cognitive impairment in psychiatry (SCIP-S) scale in patients with type I bipolar disorder

After short training, psychiatrists at 40 outpatient clinics administered the SCIP three times over two weeks to a total of 76 consecutive type I BD admissions. Experienced psychologists also administered a comprehensive battery of standard neuropsychological instruments to clinical sample and 45 healthy control subjects.Feasibility was supported by a brief administration time (approximately 15 minutes) and minimal scoring errors. The reliability of the SCIP was confirmed by good equivalence of forms, acceptable stability (ICC range 0.59 to 0.87) and adequate internal consistency (Chronbach's alpha of 0.74). Construct validity was granted by extraction of a single factor (accounting 52% of the variance), acceptable correlations with conventional neuropsychological instruments, and a clear differentiation between bipolar I and normal samples. Efficiency was also provided by the adequate sensitivity and specificity.The sample size is not very large. The SCIP and the neurocognitive battery do not cover all potentially relevant cognitive domains. Also, sensitivity to change remains unexplored.With minimal training, physicians obtained a reliable and valid estimate of cognitive impairment in approximately 15 minutes from an application of the SCIP to type I BD patients.Cognitive deficits in bipolar disorders are relevant to cerebral pathogenesis and prognosis, but they are often neglected in routine clinical practice. The deficits persist beyond the resolution of acute symptoms [1-3] and show familial co-segregation [4] consistent with expectations for a genetically based endophenotypic trait [5]. The cognitive deficits in bipolar disorder are also directly related to functional status or psychosocial outcomes [6,7], and the severity of the cognitive impairment at initiation of therapeutic intervention can be a powerful predictor of functional recovery one year later [8]. Similar observations in schizophrenia [9] prompted the National Institutes of Health initiative for