Neuropsychological assessment of subjective memory complaints in patients referred to the consultation liaison psychiatry

Objective:The aim of this study is to examine the cognitive functions of patients referred to the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (CLP) Department due to mental health issues from different medical specialties, who report subjective forgetfulness during psychiatric evaluation. Method:The study sample recruited patients aged between 40 to 65, who were referred for mental health evaluation to the CLP Department of the Department of Psychiatry at Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine from all medical treatment units of the Faculty over the last 10 years (between 2014 and 2024).Cognitive assessments were conducted at the Clinical Psychology Laboratory of the Department of Psychiatry.In this retrospective study, all accessible data of the neuropsychological test (NPT) results were included to analyses (n=71).The results were compared with those of a matched healthy control group (n=23).Results: Among patients reporting subjective forgetfulness, those referred from neurology had worse performance on forward digit span (p=0.03),semantic fluency (p<0.001), and Stroop Test error count (p=0.02), as well as memory encoding (p=0.03) and retrieval (p=0.02)scores compared to control group.Additionally, memory encoding (p=0.02) and retrieval (p<0.001)scores were worse in these patients than in those referred from other medical units.Discussion: Our findings highlight differences in the NPT results of patients referred to the CLP department, offering important insights for understanding and clinical approaches to subjective forgetfulness.It should be considered that; subjective forgetfulness may not primarily be associated with psychological distress but underlying medical conditions may also play a significant role in cognitive dysfunction.