Longitudinal associations among older adults’ neurocognitive performance, psychological distress, and self-reported cognitive function.

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

= 74.17) were assessed biannually for up to six years. Subjective cognitive function, psychological distress, and neuropsychological testing were obtained at each assessment. In multilevel models with single predictors, age, poorer average task-switching and poorer memory predicted worse subjective cognitive functioning. Both average levels and within-person deviations in distress predicted worse subjective cognitive function. There were two significant interactions: one between average distress and chronological age, and the other between average memory and within-person distress. Task switching performance and distress had an additive effect on subjective cognitive function. Both individual differences (i.e., between-person differences) and fluctuations over time (i.e., within-person changes) contributed to worse subjective cognitive function. Psychological distress may help explain the relationship between objective cognitive performance and subjective cognitive function and should be assessed when patient concerns about cognitive functioning arise.