Outcomes From Remediation and Behavioural Intervention Techniques

Dominant treatment approaches for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders improve psychiatric symptoms but do little to improve community functioning, leading to persistent disability and substantial economic burden. The proposed trial aims to examine the efficacy of a multi-mechanism approach to combining CBT and CR with the goal of predicting treatment response to either monotherapy or combination therapy. To date, there have been no randomized controlled trials examining the combination of CBT and CR. Given the differential mechanisms of CBT and CR, the combined multi-mechanism approach is expected to more effectively improve functional recovery than either monotherapy. Additionally, it is currently unknown what factors predict response to CBT or CR, thus the current trial will examine predictors of response to determine who requires the combined intervention and who might respond sufficiently to either monotherapy. The proposed trial will be one of the largest trials of psychosocial interventions for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders ever conducted and will simultaneously evaluate the combined intervention and moderators of differential treatment response. Narrower fields of inquiry examining mono-mechanism interventions have demonstrated little utility in improving functional recovery in schizophrenia, thus, the proposed approach represents a critical advancement by examining the utility of a multi-mechanism cognitive intervention and determining characteristics of those requiring this level of treatment. The goals of the current study are three-fold: 1. Examine the efficacy of combining CBT and CR on the primary outcome of community functioning, and secondary outcomes of quality of life, personal recovery, psychiatric symptoms, and neurocognition compared to either intervention alone. 2. Examine demographic, cognitive, and psychological factors that predict differential response to CBT, CR, or combined CBT and CR. 3. Examine the specificity of cognitive content and cognitive functions as therapeutic mechanisms in CBT and CR respectively.