Previously submitted to: JMIR Mental Health (no longer under consideration since Oct 19, 2021)
Date Submitted: Oct 2, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 2, 2021 - Oct 19, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Effects of a Metacognitive Smartphone Intervention for Patients with Schizophrenia: A Quasi-Experimental Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a substantial burden on the global medical system. COVID-19-related restrictions on movement and face-to-face interactions to prevent the spread of infection have increased the risk for patients with schizophrenia being overlooked by medical professionals due to increased demands on staff and facilities. Therefore, application-based treatments and interventions developed for smartphones could provide effective and essential alternatives to traditional face-to-face treatment programs for patients with schizophrenia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objective:
This study aimed to test the effect of a smartphone app-based metacognitive intervention program on the metacognitive beliefs, psychotic symptoms, and social functioning of patients with schizophrenia.
Methods:
The study used a quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent comparison group. Participants were patients with schizophrenia registered with community psychosocial rehabilitation centers. For the experimental group, the app-based intervention was combined with weekly contact mentoring sessions over 10 weeks (20 participants: severe psychotic symptoms and low social functions). The comparison group (24 participants: relatively light psychotic symptoms and good social functions) received only the app-based intervention over 10 weekly sessions. Changes in the Dysfunctional Metacognitive Beliefs (MCQ-30), Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, and Personal and Social Performance Scale were assessed at baseline (pre-intervention), post-intervention, and four-week follow-up. Data were collected from November 18, 2020, until July 15, 2021. The data analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS/WIN version 26.0.
Results:
The experimental group showed a significant improvement in the Positive Beliefs about Worries on the MCQ-30, Need for Control (P = .039), and Delusions (P < .001), and the Total Score for positive and negative syndromes, along with a decline in general psychotic symptoms (P = .027) and improved total social function scores (P = .001) over the three assessment periods.
Conclusions:
Although there were no differences in the measures between the two groups; however, the experimental group showed a tendency toward improved psychotic symptoms and social functioning over time; while the comparison group showed no change over the assessment periods. These findings can provide an empirical basis for using smartphone applications to manage the symptoms of patients with schizophrenia.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.