The objective of the present paper is to link the state of cognitive functions with the insight capacity of patients with bipolar disorder. 25 bipolar I euthymic subjects (eleven women and fourteen men, with a mean of 29, 8 years) hospitalized at the Bipolar Disorders Unit of the Psychiatric University Clinic, University of Chile, completed the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD) and the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery (LNNB).
The SUMD test tries to measure the state of awareness in relation to a mental disorder, the awareness of the effects of the drugs and the social consequences of the mental disorder suffered.
The LNNB contains 11 scales which evaluates motor, rhythm, tactile, visual, receptive language, expressive language, writing, reading, mathematics skills, mnemic processes and intellectual functions.
The sample group showed a high index of cognitive alterations; only 6 of the 25 subjects did not have a significant rise in the scales evaluated by the LNNB (24%). With respect to the application of the SUMD, the results showed that the six subjects who did not possess significant alterations in their cognitive functions had in average, lower scores, which implies a higher conscience of sickness or a higher insight in relation to the subjects that showed significant cognitive alterations.