Neurocognition and occupational functioning in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) and workplace assessments

The MCCB is widely used in clinical trials of schizophrenia, but its relationship to occupational functioning still needs further elaboration. While previous research has indicated that various domains of neurocognition assessed by individual tests are related to work functioning, these reports preceded the development of the MCCB as the standard neurocognitive test battery in the field. In the current study, the vocational functioning of 131 Norwegian participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who were enrolled in a vocational rehabilitation program were assessed on the Vocational Cognitive Rating Scale (VCRS), the Work Behavior Inventory (WBI), and the Complexity Scale (CS) as well as on the MCCB. Significant correlations were found between most MCCB domains and VCRS Total Score. MCCB processing speed and attention were most powerfully related to and predictive of WBI scores. When participants were divided into “low complexity” or “higher complexity” work categories, participants in the “low-complexity” group performed significantly worse than participants in the “higher-complexity” group regarding processing speed, working memory, visual learning and the composite score. The same pattern emerged for participants working sheltered compared to competitive jobs. The VCRS, WBI and CS may be useful in vocational rehabilitation. They bridge an important gap between test- and occupational-setting, providing valuable information about impairments related to occupational functioning. We found the MCCB to be sensitive to occupational functioning as measured by VCRS, WBI and CS, with neurocognition accounting for a small but significant proportion of the variance in these different measures of occupational functioning.