Personalizing Interventions Using Real-World Interactions: Improving Symptoms and Social Functioning in Schizophrenia With Tailored Metacognitive Therapy

Social functioning deficits are among the most disabling and difficult to treat aspects of schizophrenia. An essential component of social functioning is metacognition-a process that is profoundly disrupted in schizophrenia and represents the ability to reflect upon the mental states of oneself and others. To date, treatment efforts in schizophrenia have been hindered by barriers in accurately monitoring client's real-world social interactions. Recently, wearable technologies have evolved to provide therapists with innovative, ecologically-valid tools. The Electronically Activated Recorder is a wearable audio recorder that collects behavioral samples at pre-programmed intervals; it holds great promise as a method for yielding concrete, real-world examples of social interactions that can be used by therapists in session to enhance metacognition. Despite the immense costs of social functioning deficits, no previous studies have investigated whether functioning can be improved by integrating wearable audio recorders with psychosocial interventions.

By enhancing therapy using a wearable recording device, this proposal's primary goal is to implement a novel intervention that targets metacognitive deficits to improve social functioning. The novel intervention will be tailored to individual clients-based on the content of recorded social interactions-in a way that is not possible using traditional psychotherapy. This will allow clients and therapists to step out of the therapy room by offering a window into how clients process material in real-world interactions. In this study, a randomized controlled trial will be conducted with two schizophrenia groups receiving six months of individualized: 1) Metacognition Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT) alone (Standard MERIT); and 2) Tailored MERIT using wearable audio recorders. In this study, our specific aims will test feasibility, effectiveness, and acceptability of Tailored MERIT.