Study Comparing Patients Taking Olanzapine and Patients Taking Aripiprazole on Learning of Vocational Skills
Condition: Schizophenia Disorder; Schizoaffective Disorder
MeSH terms: Psychotic Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      STUDY PURPOSE: To study whether patients who have schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder
      and are randomly assigned to switch to aripiprazole prior to participation in a brief
      vocational skills training (VST) will have improved cognitive functioning and learn more in
      VST than those randomly assigned to stay on olanzapine. There is evidence that VST is
      important in improving role functioning for schizophrenia patients, however, cognitive
      impairments limit the ability of some patients to benefit from skills training approaches.
      Patients switched from olanzapine to aripiprazole improve in terms of verbal learning and
      verbal learning has been shown to be a strong predictor of community outcome. It is unclear
      whether the cognitive benefits of switching to aripiprazole extend to improve learning of
      vocational skills.
    

Detailed description: 
      Many schizophrenia outpatients have cognitive deficits and poor vocational functioning. There
      is evidence from randomized controlled trials that vocational skills training is important in
      improving vocational role functioning for schizophrenia patients. However, it has become
      clear that cognitive impairments limit the ability of patients to benefit from skills
      training approaches. Recent research demonstrates that patients switched from olanzapine to
      aripiprazole improve in terms of verbal learning. Verbal learning has been found to be a
      strong predictor of multiple domains of community outcome. It is unclear whether the
      cognitive benefits of switching to aripiprazole extend to improve learning of vocational
      skills. This study examines whether aripiprazole can improve the ability to benefit from
      expensive rehabilitation programs focused on skill-building. Specifically, the study examines
      whether patients who switch from olanzapine to aripiprazole learn more and benefit more from
      a brief vocational skills program than patients who remain on olanzapine. Specific aims are
      as follows: (1) we hypothesize that patients on aripiprazole will demonstrate better scores
      on tests of cognitive functioning following twelve weeks of medication treatment than
      patients on olanzapine and (2) we hypothesize that patients on aripiprazole will have
      significantly higher scores on vocational performance following a brief (2-day) vocational
      training and assessment session than those on olanzapine. Furthermore, we hypothesize that
      these gains will be maintained following one week of non-exposure to the trained vocational
      tasks.
    

Intervention name(s): aripiprazole
Intervention type(s): Drug
Intervention MeSH terms: Aripiprazole
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Keywords: aripiprazole; olanzapine; vocational; learning; cognition; cognitive