Effects of group interpersonal psychotherapy on cognitive and social function in patients with first-episode schizophrenia

Abstract

ObjectiveTo explore the effects of group interpersonal psychotherapy （IPT） on cognitive and social function in patients with first-episode schizophrenia， and to provide references for appropriate psychological treatment for the patients.MethodsA total of 62 patients with first-episode schizophrenia who met the diagnostic criteria of International Classification of Diseases， tenth edition （ICD-10） and were admitted to the Third People's Hospital of Foshan from January to December 2021 were selected as the study objects. And patients were divided into study group and control group according to random number table method， each with 31 cases. Both groups were treated with risperidone for 8 weeks， based on this， study group received group IPT. Before and after 8 weeks of treatment， Positive and Negative Syndrorne Scales （PANSS）， Wisconsin Card Sorting Tests （WCST） and Personal and Social Performance Sale（PSP） were adopted to assess the patients' psychiatric symptoms， cognitive function and social function.ResultsAfter 8 weeks of treatment， there was no significant difference in PANSS scores between the two groups （t=0.296， P>0.05）. The WCST total number of responses in the study group was larger than that in the control group， the number of perseverative errors and non-perseverative errors were smaller than those in the control group， and PSP score of the study group was higher than that of the control group， with statistically significant differences （t=0.398， 2.609， 0.523， 0.381， P<0.05 or 0.01）.ConclusionGroup IPT may have no significant efficacy on alleviating the symptoms of patients with first-episode schizophrenia， but it may help improve the cognitive and social function in patients.

Keywords

• first-episode schizophrenia
• group interpersonal psychotherapy
• cognitive function
• social function