Prospective Memory in Substance Abusers at Treatment Entry: Associations with Education, Neuropsychological Functioning, and Everyday Memory Lapses

Individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) commonly report lapses in prospective memory (PM) in their daily lives; however, our understanding of the profile and predictors of laboratory-based PM deficits in SUDs and their associations with everyday PM failures is still very preliminary. The current study examined these important questions using well-validated measures of self-report and laboratory-based PM in a mixed cohort of 53 SUD individuals at treatment entry and 44 healthy adults. Consistent with prior research, the SUD group endorsed significantly more self-cued and environmentally based PM failures in their daily lives. Moreover, the SUD group demonstrated significantly lower time-based PM performance, driven largely by cue detection errors. The effect of SUDs on PM was particularly strong among participants with fewer years of education. Within the SUD cohort, time-based PM was correlated with clinical measures assessing executive functions, retrospective memory, and psychomotor speed. Importantly, time-based PM was uniquely associated with elevated PM failures in daily lives of the SUD participants, independent of current affective distress and other neurocognitive deficits. Findings suggest that individuals with SUD are vulnerable to deficits in PM, which may in turn increase their risk for poorer everyday functioning outcomes (e. g., treatment non-compliance).