THE PREDICTORS AND MEDIATORS OF IMPROVEMENT FOLLOWING VIRTUAL REALITY BASED SOCIAL SKILL TRAINING
AUTHORS
- PMCID: PMC6455495.
ABSTRACT
Social impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia. It is present throughout the course of the illness from the premorbid stage and resistant to treatments (Green et al, 2008). Given the important role of social deficits in poor outcome, it is imperative to improve social functioning in individuals with schizophrenia (SZ), but currently available pharmacological and psychosocial interventions have not proven to be very effective. However, recent technological advances have enabled the use of virtual reality (VR) to develop novel psychiatric interventions. We have previously reported preliminary feasibility and acceptability findings from a new VR-based social interaction training program that suggests the benefits of simulating and rehearsing social interactions situations in VR (Adery et al, 2018). In the present study, we evaluated predictors and mediators of the clinical outcome of this VR-intervention.