THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COGNITION AND FUNCTIONAL IMPROVEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF A PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERVENTION TARGETING SOCIAL DISABILITY IN FIRST EPISODE PSYCHOSIS

Abstract

Whilst Early Intervention Services (EIS) are the ‘gold standard’ treatment for young people with psychosis, in a recent study of over 1000 First Episode Psychosis (FEP) cases, 66% of individuals were experiencing a high level of poor functioning, despite receiving care under EIS for a period of 12 months (Hodgekins et al., 2015). This highlights the need to develop new interventions to target functional impairments in FEP. A specialised Social Recovery Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (SRCBT) has been developed which aims to address the underlying factors impeding social recovery, and has shown to be effective at improving structured activity in individuals with established illness and FEP (Fow..