Investigating the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) Executive Errors Scale in Adults With Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Objective The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) is a brief neuropsychological screening battery that measures aspects of attention, immediate and delayed memory, and verbal and visuospatial–constructional abilities. An embedded measure of executive functions, the RBANS Executive Errors Scale (RBANS EE), has been developed as a supplementary RBANS scale. The RBANS EE reportedly has good concurrent validity and is useful for screening for executive dysfunction in U.S. military veterans, but its usefulness has not been investigated in other clinical samples. The aim of the current study is to investigate the RBANS EE scores in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Method Archival data from a sample of 241 participants with a mean age of 24.40 (SD = 5.62) years and a mean of 12.58 (SD = 1.85) years of education were analyzed. A global measure of executive functioning symptoms and problems, the Global Executive Composite (GEC) of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Self-Report Version (BRIEF-A SR) was used as a criterion measure, and two versions of the RBANS EE scale were examined. Results Only 1%–3% met criteria for executive dysfunction on the two RBANS EE versions. The BRIEF-A SR GEC did not predict error likelihood or error severity on either of the RBANS EE versions. Conclusions In sum, we did not replicate the findings reported in previous investigations of the RBANS EE in this sample of adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.