Effects of an Acceptance-based Medication Adherence Therapy for Recent-onset Psychosis

This randomized controlled trial aimed to examine the effectiveness of a 10-session acceptance-based, insight-inducing medication adherence therapy (AIM-AT) program for recent-onset psychosis (in addition to usual care) over a 12-month follow-up (i.e., at immediate, 6-month, and 12-month post-intervention).

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of an Acceptance-based, Insight-inducing Medication Adherence Therapy (AIM_ AT) for recent-onset psychosis on patient outcomes over 12-month follow-up, when compared with a standardized psychoeducation group and routine care only.

Focus-group interviews will be performed on purposively selected participants to examine perceived benefits, satisfaction and limitations of the AIM_ AT.

Hypotheses: Compared with psychoeducation group and routine care only, the AIM_AT participants will indicate significantly greater improvements in patients' adherence to anti-psychotic medication and illness/treatment insight and other secondary outcomes (symptom severity, drug attitude, progress of recovery, psychosocial functioning, satisfaction with service, and re-hospitalization rate) at immediate post-intervention, and/or greater improvements in the above outcomes at 6- and 12-month follow-ups.

Design: A multi-center RCT with repeated-measures, three-arm design. Subjects: 126 Chinese patients with recent-onset psychosis ( \</= 5 years) randomly selected from four Integrated Community Centers for Mental Wellness and randomly assigned into three study groups.

Instruments/outcome measures: Frequency, length of re-hospitalizations, and total number of patients being hospitalized from clinic records over 5-6 months; valid questionnaires (ARS, ITAQ, DAI, QPR, PANSS, SLOF, CSQ-8) for medication adherence, illness/treatment insight, drug attitude, recovery, symptom severity, functioning, and service satisfaction accordingly. Focus group interviews will collect views on benefits and weaknesses of the AIM_AT.

Data analysis: Comparing the mean value changes of outcomes between groups across time on intention-to-treat basis, using Mixed Modeling/GEE-test; and content analysis of data from focus-group interviews and intervention sessions will be conducted.

Expected results: The findings can provide evidence of the effectiveness of AIM_ AT for early-stage psychosis in community mental healthcare on improving patients' medication adherence, mental condition and recovery, functioning, and service satisfaction.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* primarily diagnosed with psychosis (termed recent-onset), including brief, first-episode and other psychotic disorders according to the criteria of the DSM-V (American Psychiatric Association, 2013);
* had the mental illness ≤5 years (defined as recent-onset psychosis in recent literature)
* Hong Kong Chinese residents, aged 18-64 years;
* Global Assessment of Functioning scores ≥51, indicating mild to moderate symptoms and difficulties in psychosocial/occupational functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), thus being mentally stable to comprehend AIM_AT and/or psychoeducation training;
* Unsatisfactory medication adherence as indicated by the Adherence Rating Scale of \<2 (Hayward et al.,1995) during screening; and
* Able to read/understand Cantonese/Mandarin.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Participated in/have recently been receiving other psychotherapies;
* Having comorbidity of another mental illness (learning disability, cognitive or personality disorder) and/or clinically significant medical disease; and
* Having communication and/or visual/hearing difficulty.