Prospective memory in schizophrenia: relationship to medication management skills, neurocognition, and symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE Impaired adherence to medication regimens is a serious concern for individuals with schizophrenia linked to relapse and poorer outcomes. One possible reason for poor adherence to medication is poor ability to remember future intentions, labeled prospective memory skills. It has been demonstrated in several studies that individuals with schizophrenia have impairments in prospective memory that are linked to everyday life skills. However, there have been no studies, to our knowledge, examining the relationship of a clinical measure of prospective memory to medication management skills, a key element of successful adherence. METHODS In this Study 41 individuals with schizophrenia and 25 healthy adults were administered a standardized test battery that included measures of prospective memory, medication management skills, neurocognition, and symptoms. RESULTS Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated impairments in prospective memory (both time and event-based) relative to healthy controls. Performance on the test of prospective memory was correlated with the standardized measure of medication management in individuals with schizophrenia. Moreover, the test of prospective memory predicted skills in medication adherence even after measures of neurocognition were accounted for. CONCLUSIONS This suggests that prospective memory may play a key role in medication management skills and thus should be a target of cognitive remediation programs.