Virtual Reality Training for Social Skills in Schizophrenia

Study Results

Results available

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Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

50 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2021-10-15

Study Completion Date

2024-05-30

Brief Summary

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Social impairments are core features of schizophrenia that lead to poor outcome. Social skills and competence improve quality of life and protect against stress-related exacerbation of symptoms, while supporting resilience, interpersonal interactions, and social affiliation. To improve outcome, it is necessary to remediate social deficits. Existing psychosocial interventions are moderately effective but the effort-intensive nature (high burden), low adherence, and weak transfer of skills to everyday life present significant hurdles toward recovery. Thus, there is a dire need to develop effective, engaging and low-burden social interventions for people with schizophrenia that will result in better compliance rates and functional outcome.

In a previous pilot study, the investigators tested the effectiveness of a novel adaptive virtual reality (VR) intervention in improving targeted social cognitive function (social attention, as indexed by eye scanning patterns) in individuals with schizophrenia. 10 sessions of 1-hour VR intervention were sufficient to engage the target mechanism of social attention and improve negative symptoms. Acceptability and compliance were very high among the participants. In fact, improvements were seen at about 4-5 sessions. Therefore, we used 8 sessions for the R33 phase.

The next phase, supported by a R33 grant compares the VR social skills training with a control condition. This new protocol includes a control condition for the exposure to computerized training across the 8 sessions and incidental exposure to social interactions (i.e. interactions with experimenters twice a week for 4-5 weeks). The control condition consists of commercially available cognitive video games played on the same computer for the same duration as the social VR training condition. This control condition is called Cognitive training game condition.

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Detailed Description

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The effectiveness of the social skills VR training at an optimal dose will be compared with an active control condition (computerized cognitive training game) in improving social attention (Social Engagement Latency: SEL), symptoms and social cogitive functioning in a pilot randomized cross-over trial.

Participants with schizophrenia will undergo a baseline assessment of social cognitive functioning, and clinical symptoms. Potential changes after Social skills VR training compared with cognitive game training will be examined.

Individuals with schizophrenia will be randomized to either the social skills VR training or the cognitive training at baseline. They will then participate in 8 sessions of social skills VR training or cognitive training (1 hour per session, twice a week for 4-5 weeks). After completion of the 8 sessions per training condition, they will cross over and participate in the other condition.

Social engagement latency (SEL) will be used as a measure of social attention which is the primary target. The Social Functional Scale (Birchwood, 1991), the the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) will be used to assess social functioning and symptoms. Emotion perception will be assesed by the Bell-Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task (BLERT-A).

Matched healthy control participants will be recruited to obtain comparison data for optimal performance levels but these healthy control participants will not undergo social skills training.

Lastly, at the end of the R33 project, if this VR social skills VR training shows that it can improve social attention, which may improve social outcome in schizophrenia, it will be possible to refine the protocol to make the method more accessible, less burdensome and widely available in the future by moving towards a mobile application.

Conditions

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Schizophrenia Schizo Affective Disorder Social Skills

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

CROSSOVER

Two conditions are compared in individuals with schizophrenia in a cross over design: social skills Virtual Reality (VR) training and active control condition of cognitive training game (non-social, cognitive video game).

Participants are assigned at random to either start with social VR (Virtual Reality) skills training and cross over to the cognitive game at baseline, or start with the cognitive game and cross over to the social VR (Virtual Reality) training. They are assessed at baseline for symptoms, social function, emotion perception.

They participate in the assigned condition until completion. They then get post-training assessments after which they switch over to the other condition.

This cross-over design was implemented due to the closure of the laboratory during the pandemic.

Healthy controls are run on the baseline tasks to provide the comparison data for the patient groups but the controls do not undergo VR training nor they yield any clinical symptoms data.

Primary Study Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Blinding Strategy

SINGLE

Outcome Assessors

Outcome assessors will be blind to the training condition. Schizophrenia participants know which games they are playing so although we do not tell them whether they are being trained for social skills or not, it is not possible to make sure that they are unaware of the types of games that they are asked to play

Study Groups

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Schizophrenia group

Participants undergo both social VR (virtual reality) training and a control game sequentially. They are randomly assigned at baseline to one training condition. After completing 8 sessions, they cross over to the other condition. There are two training conditions: social VR and cognitive training game.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

social VR (virtual reality) training

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Social skills game that we developed in the R21 phase will be used across 8 sessions of training in the lab. Each session is about 1 hour long. Participants come to the lab twice a week for 4-5 weeks.

Cognitive training (control game)

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Commercially available cognitive training program will be used to control for the time spent in the lab and associated social interactions as well as the total exposure to computerized games.

Healthy Controls

Healthy controls are recruited to yield comparison data. They do not undergo training.

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

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social VR (virtual reality) training

Social skills game that we developed in the R21 phase will be used across 8 sessions of training in the lab. Each session is about 1 hour long. Participants come to the lab twice a week for 4-5 weeks.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive training (control game)

Commercially available cognitive training program will be used to control for the time spent in the lab and associated social interactions as well as the total exposure to computerized games.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5) Axis 1 Diagnosis of schizophrenia
* Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) intelligence quotient (IQ) \> 85
* Currently taking antipsychotic medication
* No change in current psychotropic medications or housing within the past 30 days. Those patients whose medication or housing situation has changed within a month, we will wait list them until their situation stabilizes.

Exclusion Criteria

* Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM 5) Axis 1 diagnosis other than schizophrenia
* Diagnosed organic brain disease, brain lesions, history of head traumas, neurological disorders or other conditions that involve the degeneration of the central nervous system (e.g. multiple sclerosis)
* Substance/alcohol dependence during the past 1 year
* Tardive dyskinesia

* Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WAIS) IQ \> 85
* No Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5) Axis 1 diagnosis of psychotic disorders in themselves or their families (e.g. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder).
* No antipsychotic medications
* No diagnosed organic brain disease, brain lesions, history of head traumas, neurological disorders or other conditions that involve the degeneration of the central nervous system (e.g. multiple sclerosis)
* No substance/alcohol dependence during the past 1 year

Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Maximum Eligible Age

65 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes