Robyn Hayes

Social Skills Training with Chronic-Schizophrenic Patients - Effects On Negative Symptoms and Community Functioning

Sixty-three patients with schizophrenia who showed social skills deficits and poor community functioning were assigned randomly to either social skills training (SST) or a discussion group condition. In both treatments, patients met in small groups for 36 sessions of therapy over 4 months, followed by booster sessions of decreasing frequency during the following six months. Social skills, community functioning, quality of life, and positive and negative psychiatric symptoms were assessed at pre- and posttreatment, and at 6-month follow-up. Relapse was assessed during the treatment and follow-up phases. Those subjects who completed SST showed greater increases in social skill than subjects who completed the discussion condition, but there were no other significant differences between the conditions. Patients who completed either treatment showed improvements on quality of life and reduced psychopathology. SST alone had limited effect on community functioning.

Social skills training with schizophrenic patients

Deficits in interpersonal and social functioning are key characteristics of schizophrenia, as defined by DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). These deficits seem to be particularly persistent, pervasive problems as many adult schizophrenic patients have been socially isolated and withdrawn from childhood (Lewine et al., 1978, 1980). Deficits in social functioning are a significant source of stress for persons with schizophrenia, have a negative impact on their community functioning, and contribute to relapse (Anthony and Liberman, 1986; Falloon et al., 1984). Such deficits in schizophrenic patients are more than a consequence of positive and negative schizophrenic symptoms. Schizophrenic patients exhibit social skills deficits, even with positive symptoms in remission and in the absence of a manifest negative syndrome (Wallace, 1984; Jackson, 1988; Bellack et al., 1989).