# The Driving Profile of Individuals with Schizophrenia: Cognitive Characteristics, Pharmacological Treatment and Driving Competence—A Scoping Review

## TL;DR

This review explores how schizophrenia affects driving ability, focusing on cognitive, pharmacological, and functional factors that influence driving competence.

## Contribution

The study provides a multidimensional framework integrating cognitive, pharmacological, and functional factors affecting driving in schizophrenia.

## Key findings

- Cognitive factors like attention and executive function significantly impact driving performance in individuals with schizophrenia.
- Pharmacological aspects such as drug type, dosage, and side effects influence driving ability and stability.
- Functional factors including driving participation and self-regulation behaviors are critical in assessing driving competence.

## Abstract

Background/Objectives: Driving performance and competence represent a complex functional domain that may be affected in some individuals with schizophrenia. This scoping review aimed to map existing evidence characterizing driving-related functioning by identifying the cognitive, pharmacological and functional factors that influence driving ability and by synthesizing findings from experimental, neurocognitive and population-based studies. Methods: A structured search of the PubMed, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases was performed in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines to identify studies published between 2015 and 2025 that examined cognitive, pharmacological and functional dimensions of driving in individuals with schizophrenia. Extracted data were narratively and thematically synthesized. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Results: Findings clustered into three domains: cognitive, including attention, executive function, reaction time and visuospatial processing; pharmacological, encompassing drug comparisons, dosage, side effects and treatment stability; and functional, covering license status, driving participation, driving cessation, avoidance behaviors and self-regulation. Conclusions: This review integrates current evidence within a multidimensional and conditional framework, highlighting interactions between cognitive functioning, pharmacological factors, and compensatory self-regulation in individuals with schizophrenia. Understanding these interrelations may inform individualized fitness-to-drive evaluations and contribute to structured, context-sensitive interpretation of driving-related evidence in clinical and regulatory settings.