Social cognition in psychosis: a feasibility study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the feasibility of social skills training in people with psychosis
IRAS ID
138544
Contact name
Matteo Cella
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Research summary
This study is assessing the feasibility of a psychological intervention targeting social cognition problems in people with psychosis. Reduced social and community functioning is a predominant and enduring feature in people experiencing severe mental illness such as psychosis. The large majority of interventions (mostly pharmacological) target the so called positive symptoms (e.g. hallucinations and delusions) but poorly address the functional and social consequences of the illness.
This study attempts to fill this gap by assessing the feasibility of a psychological intervention targeting social cognition problems. The intervention is a group psychological treatment facilitated by a clinical psychologist. The group therapy takes advantage of audiovisual material and computer tasks to illustrate strategies and thinking styles that may help participants to overcome difficulties in social settings.
A second objective of this study is to test a new method to measure social cognition. Recent research showed that interview and performance based tests are poorly associated with every day activity of people with psychosis (Janssens et al., 2012). This study is also planning to evaluate the feasibility of new assessment methods for social cognition using portable electronic devices (Experience Sampling Method and an activity watch). These devices will be carried by participants in their everyday life and will ask about their social activity levels at random times and record activity levels.REC name
London - London Bridge Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/1791
Date of REC Opinion
18 Dec 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion