Investigating the comparison of cognitive-executive functions and emotional symptoms between individuals under methadone maintenance treatment and normal people

Executive function is considered as the capacity of the human brain including the capacity for organization, cognitive flexibility, planning, problem solving, and so on. Long-term use of opiates such as heroin and methadone is associated with a wide range of executive functions deficits. The purpose of this study was to compare cognitive-executive function and emotional symptoms of people whit methadone maintenance treatment and normal people.

This study is a causal comparative study. The study sample consisted of two groups of 40 individuals of under methadone maintenance treatment and normal people who were selected by purposeful sampling. Research tools were: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Tower of London Test (TOL) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-42 (DASS-42). Data were analyzed by SPSS-22 and independent t-test.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between methadone-treated individuals and normal people in cognitive flexibility (t= -2.48) and planning (t= -4.96) (p<0.001). The results of DASS-42 also showed that methadone-treated individuals experience more depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms than normal people (p <0.05).

Methadone-treated individuals perform poorer than normal people in terms of executive function, and experience more emotional symptoms. Therefore, these poor performances in the treatment of these individuals should be considered.