Clinical (but not cognitive) recovery in schizophrenia through the experience of fictional cinema

Abstract

IntroductionOne of the criticisms of rehabilitation techniques is their limited application to the patient’s daily life. In the past, cinema has been used as a psychiatric rehabilitation tool, with the primary objective of facilitating training in social abilities and communication. In this study, we consider the use of film not only as a clinical recovery tool but also as a novel cognitive recovery tool for additional rehabilitation not only for communication and social abilities but also for all of the basic cognitive and social cognition processes.MethodsIn this randomized clinical trial, 48 patients with schizophrenia were assigned to an experimental or control group. Both of the groups received treatment sessions that included viewing episodes of the television series The Sopranos. Next, the experimental group participated in a structured cognitive training session that featured questions and exercises based on the episodes. The control group participated in an idea-sharing session (of the same duration and frequency) about what the group members saw in the episode.ResultsAt the end of the treatment, both the positive and negative clinical symptoms of the experimental group improved significantly compared with the control group. However, this improvement was not observed in basic or social cognitive functions.DiscussionA brief intervention based on transforming the activities of daily life can be an effective tool for psychiatric rehabilitation. However, the study’s current characteristics and sample did not produce benefits in cognitive parameters.

Strategies for Psychiatric Rehabilitation and their Cognitive Outcomes in Schizophrenia: Review of Last Five-year Studies

“…In recent years, the use of movies from a CR-PR perspective has also been taken into account [24]. In fact, cinema is an art form that integrates, exploits, and promotes cognitive functions, since the ability to follow and understand a movie requires WM, visuospatial capacity, phonological and multisensory competency, episodic memory, mental management of time, attention, management of temporo-spatial coordinates, and social empathy with the characters [83].…”

“…Gelkopf et al reported benefits in SCZ psychopathology, patient state of mind, and social abilities after cinema therapy [84]. Furthermore, other groups [24] have developed structured methods based on cinema and TV series analysis [85] to induce CR benefits [86 -88].…”

Adaptación al español de cuatro instrumentos para evaluar la teoría de la mente en niños y adolescentes

“…El test tiene dos versiones, una para niños (Baron-Cohen, et al, 1999) y otra para adultos (Gregory, et al, 2002); se diferencian principalmente en las situaciones contenidas en cada una de las historias, pero se mantiene la misma cantidad de estímulos. En la actualidad este test ha sido ampliamente empleado en diferentes estudios con población clínica, como en el Trastorno del Espectro Autista (Thiébaut, et al, 2016;Tin, et al, 2018;Zalla, Sav, Stopin, Ahade & Leboyer, 2009;Zalla & Korman, 2018), Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad (Mary, et al, 2015;Maoz, et al, 2014), Esquizofrenia (Croca, et al, 2018;Hendriks, et al, 2016;Peña, et al, 2015), Demencias (Duclos, Desgranges, Eustache, & Laisney, 2018;Poletti, Enrici, & Adenzato, 2012) y Trastornos de la Conducta y la Personalidad (Fonagy & Bateman, 2016;Fonagy & Sharp, 2015), solo por mencionar los más frecuentes. En cuanto a su validación y adaptación transcultural, pese a ser muy utilizados principalmente en investigación, no se han realizado muchos estudios en este sentido, aunque se pueden mencionar los trabajos de Etchepare, et al (2014) en población francesa, Mehta et al, (2011) en población india, Faísca, et al, (2016) en población portuguesa y Chen et al, (2017) en población china con esquizofrenia.…”

The effects of reading and watching fiction on the development of social cognition: a systematic review

“…Both diagnoses are characterized by deficits in social functioning as one of the main diagnostic criteria, especially deficits in the ability to mentalize 18 , 19 . Studies by Gürcan et al 18 , Peña et al 20 and Pino and Mazza 21 suggest that interventions using literary fiction or movies can improve clinical symptomatology in schizophrenia, as well as promote mentalizing and social functioning skills. Similarly, studies performed with people with ASD suggest that reading could improve social understanding 22 and film analysis interventions could enhance the development of perspective-taking abilities 23 .…”