| Abstract: | The accuracy of the Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Examination (NCSE) in detecting the presence of cognitive impairment among substance-abusing patients was examined. The NCSE and the Neuropsychological Screening Battery (NSB), which has been shown in previous studies to discriminate reliably between cognitively impaired and intact substance abusing patients, were administered to 51 detoxified patients. Using participants' performances on the NSB as the criterion measure, 22 (43%) were found to be cognitively impaired. The NCSE identified only 8 of these 22 patients (36%) as being impaired; additionally, 4 of the 29 patients found to be cognitively intact by the NSB (14%) were classified as impaired by the NCSE. Thus, the false-negative rate of the NCSE is too high to recommend its use with substance-abusing patients (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
