SCIT Versus TAR for Outpatients With Schizophrenia

The present work consists of a randomized clinical trial comparing the effectiveness of two interventions based on social cognition training in outpatients with schizophrenia. The investigators sought to compare the effect of a "targeted" (TAR) and a "broad-based" (SCIT) intervention on schizophrenia patients' performance in facial affect recognition, theory of mind and attributional style. Secondarily, the investigators compare the effect on symptomatology, general cognition and functioning. The main hypothesis was that the patient group receiving TAR would exhibit a greater improvement in emotion recognition performance at the post-intervention assessment in comparison to patients receiving the SCIT, and, conversely, patients receiving SCIT would show more effect in ToM and attributional style. To assess the durability of these effects, performance in measures of social cognition, basic cognitive functioning, symptomatology and functional capacity were assessed before (T0), after treatment (T1) and 3 months later (T2).