Evaluating a Novel Mobile App for Social Cognition in Psychosis
Condition: Schizophrenia; Psychosis
MeSH terms: Schizophrenia; Psychotic Disorders; Mental Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      To develop, and then evaluate a mobile phone app to deliver therapy homework activities
      between group sessions (social cognition intervention) in individuals with psychosis. The
      investigators are interested in whether offering homework via an app is a) feasible, and b)
      acceptable.

      The investigators will also assess whether there is an initial indication that offering
      homework via the app improves outcomes following the group therapy.
    

Detailed description: 
      This study is a pilot, feasibility trial of a clinical intervention.

      The investigators will initially pilot the app with three clinical participants, who will be
      asked to use the app for a period of three days and provide feedback as to whether there are
      any difficulties with usability, glitches, display, etc.

      Two therapy groups will then be run consecutively. The therapy delivered will be a modified
      version of Group Training for Social Cognition in Psychosis (GRASP). Both groups will receive
      their homework tasks delivered via an app. Participants will undergo an assessment before and
      after the therapy, and a follow up interview as detailed in the measures section below.
      Primary objective: To evaluate a mobile app to deliver therapy homework between sessions of a
      social cognition therapy group for individuals with psychosis. The investigators are
      interested in whether offering homework via an app is a) feasible, and b) acceptable.

      Secondary objective: To assess whether there is an initial indication that our intervention
      improves social cognition skills.
    

Intervention name(s): Social Cognition Group; Novel Mobile App
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Device
Intervention description(s): Each session lasts 90 minutes and includes three 20-minute work packages tapping different social cognition skills; specifically affect recognition and theory of mind/mental state attribution in this study. Examples of the work packages include guessing the emotions of others based on their facial expressions, activities such as indicating how confident participants feel about guessing emotions when looking at more ambiguous pictures, and watching/discussing video clips with content relevant to the group.; The novel homework app was designed to deliver tasks to the participants between group therapy sessions. Three types of task were delivered by the app; 'Stories', 'Emotions', and 'Facts and Guesses'. The 'Stories' task was designed to encourage participants to think about how thoughts, emotions and actions interact. Participants were presented with a short vignette and asked to identify the emotion or behaviour of a character. 'Emotions' aimed to target affect perception by presenting faces of different emotion presentations and asking clients to select the correct emotion from a list of three, whilst 'Facts and Guesses' aimed to address difficulties with jumping to conclusions in social situations by showing clients a photograph of a social situation and asking them to determine whether a given statement about the photo was a "fact" or a "guess". Confidence in answers was also assessed in order to encourage flexible thinking.
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Treatment