Substance Use and Mental Health Characteristics Associated with Cognitive Functioning Among Adults Who Use Methamphetamine

Abstract

This study describes cognitive functioning and its relation to psychiatric and substance use severity among adults with long duration methamphetamine use. Study participants (N = 405) completed a battery of tests from the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics that examined cognitive accuracy, processing speed, and efficiency. Multivariate analyses indicate that lower accuracy but faster speed on learning, spatial memory and delayed memory were correlated with more days of past-month methamphetamine use. Lifetime months of methamphetamine use was not related to cognitive functioning. Poorer cognitive efficiency was related to other problems, including crack/cocaine use, symptoms of depression, and poorer emotional state.

KEYWORDS:

• Methamphetamine
• cognitive functioning
• substance use
• mental health

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01-DA025113). Preliminary results were presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, Hollywood, FL, June, 2011. The authors thank Franklin Bolanos, Dayna Christou, Aurora Pham, Adnan Raihan, Luz Rodriguez and Patricia Sheaff for their assistance with data collection.