Construction of a Questionnaire for Complaints of Cognitive Disturbances in Patients with Mental Disorders

The present study aimed at a first evaluation of the new developed questionnaire for complaints of cognitive disturbances (FLei) in patients with mental disorders. We investigated 259 subjects, 68 patients with schizophrenia, 94 patients with depression, and 97 healthy subjects. The first version of the questionnaire had 88 items covering the domains of attention, memory, executive functions, and visual neglect. We shortened the questionnaire to 35 items. Domains were highly correlated. The questionnaire demonstrated sound characteristics of the items, high consistency, and sound split-half reliability. Depressive patients reported the most pronounced deficits. High intercorrelations question the distinctiveness of the neuropsychological domains. In future studies the results of the present study need to be confirmed with independent samples.