Effectiveness of mindfulness-based intervention in schizophrenia: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Schizophrenia poses significant societal challenges, including interpersonal tension, an increased risk of suicide, and soaring medical costs. Although antipsychotics can prevent relapses, they often give rise to adverse effects and do not provide lasting relief. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) emerge as a hopeful avenue for improving outcomes. However, existing research and meta-analyses of the efficacy of MBI in schizophrenia remain limited. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of MBI as an adjunctive therapy for schizophrenia. Relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were searched across PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library from inception dates up to January 12, 2023. Statistical analyses were conducted using Stata software (version 15.0) and Review Manager 5.4. The quality of the included RCTs was assessed using the revised Cochrane risk of bias tool. A total of 18 RCTs were included, with 675 patients and 704 health controls. Our meta-analysis revealed that MBI significantly improved psychosocial function, insight, and mindfulness in individuals with schizophrenia. The quality of the included RCTs had a low to moderate risk of bias. These findings suggest that MBI holds promise for improving the mental health of individuals with schizophrenia.

The effect of cognitive behavioral therapy-based psychoeducation on internalized stigma and functional remission in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia

PURPOSE

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy-based psychoeducation provided to individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia on internalized stigma and functional remission.

DESIGN AND METHODS

The study was conducted based on the quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group with 100 individuals, who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, in a Community Mental Health Center between September 2020 and June 2021.

FINDINGS

It was determined that after the cognitive behavioral therapy-based psychoeducation, the internalized stigma level decreased and the functional remission level increased in the experimental group compared with the control group.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

In the study, it was determined that the experimental and control groups had low levels of functional remission and high levels of internalized stigma before the cognitive behavioral therapy-based psychoeducation, and the functional remission levels increased and the internalized stigma levels decreased in the experimental group compared with the control group after the cognitive behavioral therapy-based psychoeducation.

The effect of mindfulness on medication adherence in individuals diagnosed with Schizophrenia: A cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of mindfulness on medication adherence in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted with 147 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. The data were collected using the Descriptive Characteristics Form, Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, and Mindful Attention Awareness Scale.

RESULTS

A strong positive correlation was determined between the mindfulness level and medication adherence of the individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Furthermore, mindfulness of the individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia was statistically significant in explaining medication adherence (p < 0.05) and mindfulness predicted medication adherence by 64%.

CONCLUSION

It was observed that the individuals' mindfulness level was low and half of the participants had low medication adherence. Moreover, as their mindfulness level increased, so did their medication adherence.

An evaluation of the disability, insight and self-care agency of schizophrenia patients

AIM

This study aims to evaluate the disability, insight and self-care agency of schizophrenia patients.

DESIGN AND METHOD

This descriptive study was conducted with 100 patients in remission who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia at community mental health centers.

RESULTS

The schizophrenia patients had poor insight and moderate self-care agency. The self-care agency of schizophrenia patients is a neglected issue in medicine, and is associated with positive and negative symptoms, insight and disability.

IMPLEMENTATION RESULTS

The results can guide community mental health center nurses to increase the quality of life of schizophrenia patients in remission and to help reintegrate them into society.

An Update on Clinical Insight, Cognitive Insight, and Introspective Accuracy in Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders: Symptoms, Cognition, and Treatment

INTRODUCTION

Poor insight, or unawareness of morbid changes in cognition, emotional states, or behavior, is commonly observed among people with schizophrenia. Poor insight represents a persistent barrier to wellness because it interferes with treatment and self-direction. Paradoxically, good insight may also be a barrier to health when awareness of these changes leads to depression or self-stigma.

AREAS COVERED

This paper builds upon this previous work by exploring these issues in schizophrenia separately as they have appeared in published research over the last three years in three different kinds of insight: clinical, cognition, and introspective accuracy. Specifically, studies are reviewed that address: the adverse effects of poor insight, the paradoxical effects of good insight, correlates with other forms of cognition, and emerging treatments.

EXPERT OPINION

The evidence continues to offer a nuanced picture of the complex effects of good insight in schizophrenia. Incremental improvements were also found in the development of novel integrative treatment approaches. This work also highlights the intricacy of the concept of insight, the need for further exploration of the effects of culture, and conceptual work that distinguishes the points of convergence and divergence of these forms of insight.

Mindfulness-based psychoeducation for schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a qualitative analysis of participants' experiences

Mindfulness-based psychoeducation program (MBPP) has been proposed as a new approach to improve the overall outcomes for individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. However, to date, limited studies have examined the participants' experiences of MBPP for schizophrenia.

The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) who underwent an 8-week MBPP with respect to their perception of the benefits and unusual challenges of mindfulness training and self-practices.

Twenty-four (n = 24) individuals with SSDs were invited to participate in an 8-week MBPP. A total of eight participants were invited for semi-structured interview one week after the final class of MBPP. The semi-structured interview was conducted in Cantonese and data were transcribed by the first author. Of the eight participants, five participants had unusual experiences and three participants had a positive experience with MBPP. They were included to provide more candid understanding on the constituents of diverse experience towards MBPP. An interview guide was developed to understand the patients' perceptions of MBPP, the challenege in self-practising mindfulness, and the changes in how they coped with their illness during and after taking part in MBPP. Qualitative data from the semi-structured interview were recorded by a research assistant and the transcripts were proof-read by the participants to ensure accuracy. The Software NVivo 12 Pro was used to manage the qualitative data from the semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis was adopted to identify the major themes from the qualitative data.

Five themes emerged: developing a state of mindfulness, empowering illness management, learning a new way to regulate emotion, encountering barriers in self-practising mindfulness and preference for bodily mindfulness.

The findings provide comprehensive knowledge and deeper insights into treatment processes of mindfulness psychoeducation as an intervention for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

IMPACT STATEMENT

This study establishes a body of knowledge regarding people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who received mindfulness psychoeducation intervention. The results suggest that patients can develop a new way to regulate emotion and manage their illness through mindfulness psychoeducation. The perceived negative experience of some patients also warrants closer attention in mindfulness practice, especially for individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Further research could focus on factors leading to the negative consequences of mindfulness practice and the ways to minimize the negative consequeces.

The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Training on Hope, Psychological Well-Being, and Functional Recovery in Patients with Schizophrenia

This study tested the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training on multiple outcomes in patients with schizophrenia. We compared MBSR, psychoeducation, and control groups in a randomized controlled research design. Outcome measures assessed hope, psychological wellbeing, and functional recovery over three time points in 137 participants. The results of this study indicate that MBSR training was more effective in terms of increasing the level of hope, psychological well-being, and functional recovery of schizophrenia patients when compared with psychoeducation and control patients.

The Effect of Mindfulness-Based Psychosocial Skills Training on Functioning and Insight Level in Patients with Schizophrenia

This study aims to determine the effect of mindfulness-based psychosocial skills training (MBPST) on the functional recovery and insight level in patients with schizophrenia. In this study, 40 patients with schizophrenia registered in the Aksaray Community Mental Health Centre were divided into two groups: the intervention group (n = 20) and the non-intervention group (n = 20). The Functional Recovery Scale in Schizophrenia (FRSS) and the Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS) were measured at preintervention and postintervention. The posttest mean scores of FRSS and BCIS of the intervention group were statistically higher than the non-intervention group (p < 0.05). The MBPST program improved functional recovery and cognitive insight in schizophrenia. In line with these results, it has been recommended that MBPST program should be provided along with medical treatment in Community Mental Health Centres.

Effects of Mindfulness on Stimulating Hope and Recovery among People with Schizophrenia

Background: Hope has an essential role in the recovery journey for people with schizophrenia. Current studies showed that people with schizophrenia reported having low hope. There is growing evidence that mindfulness has favorable effects on mental health in populations with chronic illness, including people with schizophrenia. However, the studies evaluating effects of mindfulness on hope and recovery for people with schizophrenia are limited.Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effects of mindfulness on hope and recovery among people with schizophrenia.Methods: This quasi-experimental study was carried out on 54 patients with schizophrenia based on purposive sampling in a psychiatric hospital in Indonesia. The respondents were divided into two groups with 27 patients each in the intervention and the control group. The intervention group received 2-session mindfulness, while the control group received standard care. The data were collected using the demographic questionnaire, the Schizophrenia Hope Scale (SHS-9), and Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS), and analyzed using the Chi-Square and Mann-Whitney tests. Results: After mindfulness therapy, the intervention group showed a higher mean score of hope than the control group (14.30±2.50 and 9.04±2.15, respectively) as well as in the mean of recovery (86.78±4.00 and 73.56±6.04, respectively). There were significant differences in hope and recovery levels between the two groups with p-value <0.001.Conclusion: This study showed that mindfulness is an effective strategy to stimulate hope and recovery among people with schizophrenia. Nurses can apply mindfulness as one of the nursing interventions for helping the recovery process among this population. 

Predictive factors of functional remission in patients with early to mid-stage schizophrenia treated by long acting antipsychotics and the specific role of clinical remission

BACKGROUND

Functional remission has become a major therapeutic objective in schizophrenia, but the probability of such positive outcome has a large variability, ranging from 15% to 51%. Additionally, how clinical remission constitutes a prerequisite for functional remission also remains unclear.

METHODS

A prospective observational study was conducted in French schizophrenic patients who initiated treatment with a long-acting injectable (LAI) after an acute episode. Functional and clinical remissions were assessed using the FROGS and the Andreasen criteria, and the role of clinical remission and predictive factors of functional remission was evaluated.

RESULTS

Three hundred three patients with schizophrenia (DSM-IV criteria) were followed for 12 months. At 12 months, 45.1% of the patients reached functional remission while 55.1% obtained clinical remission. Clinical remission facilitated functional remission (OR = 14.74), especially in patients with psychosis for less than 5 years (OR = 23.73). Other predictive factors concerned the family environment, education level, employment status, baseline functioning levels and level of insight.

CONCLUSIONS

About half of patients treated with LAI reached functional remission after one year of follow-up. Reduced clinical symptoms and reaching clinical remission largely favored functional remission. These results stress the importance of continuous and appropriate symptomatic treatment to reach functional remission and maximize recovery chances.

Insight in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: relationship with behavior, mood and perceived quality of life, underlying causes and emerging treatments

Poor insight in schizophrenia is prevalent across cultures and phases of illness. In this review, we examine the recent research on the relationship of insight with behavior, mood and perceived quality of life, on its complex roots, and on the effects of existing and emerging treatments. This research indicates that poor insight predicts poorer treatment adherence and therapeutic alliance, higher symptom severity and more impaired community function, while good insight predicts a higher frequency of depression and demoralization, especially when coupled with stigma and social disadvantage. This research also suggests that poor insight may arise in response to biological, experiential, neuropsychological, social-cognitive, metacognitive and socio-political factors. Studies of the effects of existing and developing treatments indicate that they may influence insight. In the context of earlier research and historical models, these findings support an integrative model of poor insight. This model suggests that insight requires the integration of information about changes in internal states, external circumstances, others' perspectives and life trajectory as well as the multifaceted consequences and causes of each of those changes. One implication is that treatments should, beyond providing education, seek to assist persons with schizophrenia to integrate the broad range of complex and potentially deeply painful experiences which are associated with mental illness into their own personally meaningful, coherent and adaptive picture.

Achieving recovery in patients with schizophrenia through psychosocial interventions: A retrospective study

AIM

Recovery, or functional remission, represents the ultimate treatment goal in schizophrenia. Despite its importance, a standardized definition of remission is still lacking, thus reported rates significantly vary across studies. Moreover, the effects of rehabilitative interventions on recovery have not been thoroughly investigated. This study aimed to evaluate recovery in a sample of patients with chronic schizophrenia engaged in rehabilitation programs and to explore contributing factors, with a focus on sociocognitive rehabilitative interventions.

METHODS

Data from 104 patients with schizophrenia treated either with a standard rehabilitation program, including cognitive remediation (n = 46), or the latter plus a specific sociocognitive intervention (n = 58), and assessed for psychopathology, cognition, social cognition, and Quality of Life Scale, were retrospectively analyzed for this study.

RESULTS

Recovery, evaluated with the Quality of Life Scale, was achieved by 56.76% of patients in our sample. While no effects were observed for clinical, cognitive, or sociocognitive variables, participation in the sociocognitive rehabilitative interventions was positively associated with recovery.

CONCLUSION

Our results indicate that high rates of recovery can be achieved in patients treated with psychosocial interventions and suggest that rehabilitative programs targeting social cognition may further facilitate the process of recovery. If confirmed, these results may have relevant implications for daily clinical practice and service provision, allowing clinicians to develop and optimize specific rehabilitation programs in order to promote recovery.