Short-term memory in Croatian war veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder.

AIM To assess short-term memory impairment in war veterans with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). METHOD The study included 20 war veterans diagnosed with PTSD and 21 control subjects matched for age, sex, and education level. Both groups were tested with the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (ROCFT), consisting of Copy, Immediate Recall, and Delayed Recall steps, and Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT). Subjects with visuoperceptive and visuoconstructional deficits, as indicated by their ROCFT Copy scores were excluded from the analysis, because this type of cognitive deficit could interfere with the results of the next two ROCFT steps measuring short-term memory. RESULTS Subjects with PTSD scored significantly lower than control subjects on both Immediate Recall (mean+/-standard deviation [SD], 16.3+/-6.4 vs 26.7+/-4.5, respectively; P<0.001, t-test for independent samples) and Delayed Recall tests (15.7+/-6.1 vs 26.3+/-4.6, respectively; P<0.001, t-test for independent samples) on ROCFT test. Intragroup comparison showed that both groups scored significantly lower on Immediate Recall test in comparison with Copy test (19.3+/-6.4 for veterans and 8.9+/-4.5 for controls; P<0.001 for both, t-test for dependent samples), whereas no significant score difference was found between Immediate and Delayed Recall scores in either group (0.7+/-2.4 for veterans, P=0.239, t-test for dependent samples; and 0.5+/-1.8 for controls, P=0.248, t-test for dependent samples), which indicated greater difficulties with acquiring new information than with recalling already memorized information. Subjects with PTSD made significantly more errors on the BVRT for visuoperceptive and visuoconstructional abilities than control subjects (7.8+/-2.9 for veterans; 4.0+/-1.88 for controls; P<0.001, t-test for independent samples). CONCLUSION War veterans with PTSD had impaired short-term memory and visual retention, but these cognitive deficits could not be related to traumatic experiences with certainty.