Using the MMSE-2 to Measure Cognitive Deterioration in a Sample of Psychiatric Patients Living in Puerto Rico

Patients with psychiatric disorders often have cognitive impairment. Several deficits have been recognized in patients with mood and/or psychotic disorders. We hypothesized that differences in the levels of deterioration exist between patients with bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and schizoaffective disorder (SAD). The mini-mental state examination, version 2 (MMSE-2), was used with a sample of 160 psychiatric patients to measure cognitive impairment. The aims of this study were as follows: (1) To characterize the differences in cognitive deterioration among patients diagnosed with BD, MDD, or SAD; (2) to explore item difficulty and cutoff points based on the educational level and other variables which are significant for our psychiatric population. Descriptive statistics were used for categorical variables. In addition, a Bonferroni post hoc test and an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) for the continuous dependent variable were performed. Psychiatric diagnosis and years of education adjusted by several covariates proved to be significant. The 25th percentile were obtained to establish the cutoff points. Each item’s difficulty was analyzed using means and chi-square tests. Cognitive deterioration was found in 51% of the patients with SAD, in 31% with BD, and in 18% with MDD.