Predicting cognitive performance in alcoholics and nonalcoholics: specification of affective, childhood behavior disorders, and antisocial variables.

Glenn, Errico, Parsons, King, and Nixon (1993) reported that composite indexes of childhood behavior disorders, current affective distress, and lifetime antisocial behaviors predicted different aspects of neurocognitive functioning in abstinent male and female alcoholics and in peer nonalcoholics. To make the results more pertinent to clinical assessment, we have: (a) identified the components of the composite indexes that were the best predictors, (b) added new data predicting overall impairment, and (c) conducted within-group male and female comparisons. In alcoholics, the depressive symptoms component of the affective distress composite index predicted set-shifting and overall impairment scores; the childhood attention deficit disorder behaviors component of the childhood behavior disorders composite predicted lower verbal performance. For nonalcoholics, childhood attention disorder behaviors predicted verbal, visuospatial, set-shifting, and overall impairment scores. Results for men and women were generally consistent with overall group analyses. The results have implications for cognitive assessment in alcoholic and nonalcoholic persons.