Improving Negative Symptoms & Community Engagement in Veterans With Schizophrenia

Summary

The goal of this project is to evaluate an innovative psychosocial intervention package that will incorporate evidence-based treatment strategies to target the affective-motivational deficits, negative expectancies, and behavioral skills deficits that are central to the maintenance of negative symptoms. The intervention - called EnCoRE (Engaging in Community Roles and Experiences) - will include strategies aimed at teaching Veterans with schizophrenia and negative symptoms ways to (1) overcome deficits in anticipatory pleasure, (2) increase intrinsic motivation for goal-directed activities, (3) reduce expectancies for failure, and (4) perform skillfully in new social situations, all of which can impact implementation of new skills and behaviors. Rather than develop a new set of intervention strategies, the investigators will include within EnCoRE evidence-based strategies for these treatment domains. In addition, the investigators will collect qualitative information both from Veterans concerning their perceptions of the strengths, weaknesses, and barriers to participation in EnCoRE, as well as from a sample of mental health providers who work with Veterans with schizophrenia and negative symptoms, in order to inform a larger scale implementation trial should EnCoRE prove effective here.

Conditions

• Schizophrenia
• Serious Mental Illness

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Engaging in Community Roles and Experiences (ENCoRE)

Engaging in Community Roles and Experiences (ENCoRE) includes evidence-based psychosocial treatment strategies to target the affective-motivational deficits, negative expectancies, and behavioral skills deficits that are central to the maintenance of negative symptoms. Behavioral strategies include motivational enhancement, psychoeducation, cognitive therapy, and social skills training.

BEHAVIORAL

Health & Wellness (H&W)

Health \& Wellness (H\&W) will focus on health and wellness issues and education on ways to better manage health-related concerns following a basic structure that includes: review of the previous session's material, new educational content, and discussion/application. Topics will include: 1) Overview, 2) Physical Activity (3 sessions), 3) Nutrition/Healthy Eating (3 sessions), 4) Managing Fatigue/Sleep (3 sessions), 5) Relaxation (3 sessions), 6) Tobacco cessation (3 sessions), 7) Substance Use (3 sessions), 8) Medication/Side Effects (3 sessions), 9) Review (1 session), and Closing (1session).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• VA Office of Research and Development

  lead FED

Principal Investigators

• Melanie E Bennett · Baltimore VA Medical Center VA Maryland Health Care System, Baltimore, MD

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-08-03

Primary Completion

2020-05-27

Completion

2020-05-27

Countries

• United States

Study Locations