Impaired perceptual--cognitive functioning in women alcoholics. Cross-validated findings.

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Abstract
In a cross-validated study, level and pattern of women alcoholics'' performance were investigated by factor-analytic techniques to determine whether the effects of alcoholism in women are similar to those reported in men. A battery of neuropsychological tests (including the Shipley Institute of Living Scale for Measuring Intellectual Impairment, Raven''s Advanced Progressive Matrices, the Halstead Category Test, the Halstead Tactual Performance Test, the Trail-Making Test, the comprehension, similarities, digit span, block design, digit symbol and picture completion subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Memory-for-Designs Test, the Bender Gestalt Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) was administered to 37 women alcoholics (mean age 41) and 73 nonalcoholic women equated for age and education in study 1, and to 35 women alcoholics (mean age 43) and 35 matched controls in study 2. In study 1, the data were factor analyzed separately for the alcoholics and controls. The factor structures of the groups appeared similar, therefore the groups were combined and analyzed. Initial factors were extracted by principal component analyses, and 4 factors were retained and rotated to a terminal solution by the varimax method. The same analyses were repeated for study 2. The factors extracted from the 2nd study were virtually identical to those of the 1st study. They were interpreted as follows: nonverbal perceptual-spatial and problem-solving skills; general verbal intelligence; memory for tactual-spatial relations; and short-term memory and perceptual-motor skills. Multivariate analyses of variance of the factor scores indicated that, overall, the alcoholics performed significantly poorer than did the controls in studies 1 (P < 0.001) and 2 (P < 0.01). As expected, women alcoholics showed marked deficits in nonverbal perceptual-spatial and problem-solving abilities, but not in general verbal intelligence or memory for tactual-spatial relations, a performance pattern highly similar to that described for men alcoholics. Additionally, performances of women alcohlics replicated those of men alcoholics on every individual measure in the battery but one. The neuropsychological effects of alcoholism are the same in men and women and, although alcoholism depresses performance on certain tasks, it does not alter the underlying pattern of cognitive abilities.

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