Determinants of cognitive performance in systemic lupus erythematosus

Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may have a variety of neuropsychiatric syndromes. Assessment of cognitive functioning for these patients is complicated by increased prevalence and disease severity among groups obtaining lower scores on measures of cognitive functioning in normative national samples. Cognitive ability was quantified in a diverse cohort of patients with SLE and a demographically matched group of control participants. Hierarchical regression demonstrated a small increase (6%) in explained variation in cognitive functioning when presence of SLE was added to the equation derived from demographic variables. No significant interaction was found between race and disease. These results suggest that increased frequency of cognitive impairment in African Americans with SLE is due to the additive effects of psychosocial variables.