O papel da consciência interoceptiva na relação entre as queixas subjectivas de memória e os défices objectivos na depressão

Abstract

This study tries to better understand the relationship between subjective and objective cognitive deficits and how it relates to interoceptive awareness in depressed individuals. The discrepancy between subjective and objective deficits may be explained by a perceptual distortion of cognitive ability in depressed individuals. This same discrepancy can also be explained by a lack of interoceptive awareness or a worse capability of internal state analysis by such individuals. The method used consisted in an evaluation of 15 participants aged 51 through 85 diagnosed with depression. For this the subjective memory complaints questionnaire (QSM), hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS), along with the digit-span and verbal pair associates tasks belonging to the Weschler’s memory scale (WMS), MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test), Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test’s event task, and the Multi-Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness scale (MAIA-P). Individuals with more severe depressive symptomatology showed more difficulty with internal state self-regulation as well as lower performance regarding verbal memory. No significant effects were reported regarding the relationship between variability in subjective/objective deficits and variability in interoceptive awareness. The results of this study did not meet the revised literature, possibly due to sample limitations. Never the less, there were effects observed regarding the relationship between depressive symptomatology and internal state self-regulation as well as regarding the relationship between verbal memory performance tasks and ability to discriminate between different internal states.

Date of Award	28 Jul 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rita Canaipa (Supervisor) & Manuel Domingos (Co-Supervisor)