Verbal Fluency Functions in Patients with Schizophrenia, their unaffected Siblings and Healthy Controls

N. Suresh Kumar; Dr.S. RajaKumari

Volume : VII, Issue : I, January - 2018

Verbal Fluency Functions in Patients with Schizophrenia, their unaffected Siblings and Healthy Controls

N. Suresh Kumar, Dr. S. Rajakumari

Abstract :

Verbal fluency is a cognitive function that allows retrieval of information from memory and can be measured by semantic and phonological fluency tasks. Verbal fluency is a core feature of schizophrenia and is considered as endophenotypes of schizophrenia. This research is an attempt to investigate the verbal fluency functions in patients with schizophrenia, unaffected siblings and healthy controls. The sample comprises of 30 patients with schizophrenia, 30 unaffected siblings and 30 healthy controls from Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai–20, by purposive sampling method. They were assessed with category fluency and phonemic fluency test. The results showed that when compared with healthy controls, the patients with schizophrenia and unaffected siblings showed statistically significant difference on Category Fluency and Phonemic Fluency test. Our findings suggest that, this poor verbal fluency performance might be caused by familial predisposition to schizophrenia and could be an endophenotype for schizophrenia.