Executive function in pediatric patients with cystic fibrosis, inflammatory bowel disease and in healthy controls.

OBJECTIVE: The main aim of this study was to analyze and compare executive function performance in pediatric patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and in healthy controls.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: 28 patients with CF, 30 patients with IBD and 30 healthy participants took part in the study (all in the age range of 7-17). All participants were in the intellectual norm. The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) was applied to assess executive functions.

RESULTS: The CF group received significantly (p < 0.05) poorer scores than the control and IBD groups in the following WCST indicators: Number of trials administered, Total number of errors, Perseverative errors, Non-perseverative errors, Percent of conceptual level responses, Trials to complete the first category. The IBD group was not significantly different from the control group in any of the WCST indicators.

CONCLUSIONS: To our best knowledge, results of this study are the first report of the presence of executive function deficits among pediatric patients with CF. It is also the first study that describes the performance of the executive function in IBD pediatric patients, and the first that compares cognitive functioning between CF and IBD patients.