Entrenamiento en percepción de emociones en pacientes con esquizofrenia / Training on emotional perception for patients with schizophrenia

OBJETIVO: revaluar la eficacia de la herramienta E-Motional Training de entrenamiento en percepción emocional en pacientes con esquizofrenia en términos de mejoría clínica y de procesamiento emocional, en comparación con el tratamiento habitual. MÉTODO: se realizó un ensayo clínico aleatorizado, multicéntrico, simple ciego en 60 pacientes ambulatorios con esquizofrenia. Todos los pacientes (control e intervención) fueron tratados con terapia con medicamentos, manejo de casos y psicoterapia individual y grupal. Los pacientes fueron evaluados antes y después de la intervención. El grupo control realizó el tratamiento habitual. El grupo intervención llevó a cabo el tratamiento habitual y además una sesión semanal de una hora de duración (12 sesiones en total) con el aplicativo informático E-Motional Training, que incluye tutoriales y módulos de entrenamiento en percepción emocional y microexpresiones, así como pretest y postest para evaluar el progreso del paciente. Se recogieron variables sociodemográficas y clínicas (utilizando la escala PANSS), y se evaluó la percepción emocional mediante el test de Ekman 60 Faces Test. Se efectuó análisis descriptivo y bivariante. Se consideraron diferencias estadísticamente significativas entre los grupos con p< 0,05. Se usó el paquete estadístico SPSS 22.0 y R. RESULTADOS: el grupo sometido a entrenamiento obtuvo datos estadísticamente significativos (p< 0,05) tanto en percepción emocional, como en la reducción de la sintomatología negativa (p< 0,01) en comparación con el grupo control. DISCUSIÓN: la herramienta E-Motional Training permite el autoentrenamiento en percepción emocional en pacientes con esquizofrenia que presentan déficits de percepción emocional. Esta herramienta produce, además, una mejoría clínica en los pacientes

OBJECTIVE: to assess the efficacy of the E-Motional Training tool on emotional perception training for patients with schizophrenia in terms of clinical improvement and emotional processing, compared with standard treatment. METHOD: a randomized, multicenter, single blinded clinical trial was conducted on 60 outpatients with schizophrenia. All patients (control and intervention arms) were treated with drug therapy, case management, and individual and group psychotherapy. Patients were evaluated before and after the intervention. The control arm followed standard treatment. The intervention arm followed standard treatment, and also a weekly 1-hour session (12 sessions in total) with the E-Motional Training application, which includes tutorials and training modules on emotional perception and microexpressions, as well as a pre-test and a post-test to assess patient progress. Sociodemographical and clinical variables were collected (using the PANSS scale), and the emotional perception was evaluated through the Ekman 60 Faces Test. Descriptive and bivariate analysis was conducted. Statistically significant differences between arms were considered as p< 0.05. The statistical package SPSS 22.0 for R was used. RESULTS: the arm following training obtained statistically significant data (p< 0.05), both in emotional perception and in reduction of negative symptomatology (p< 0.01) vs. the control arm. DISCUSSION: the E-Motional Training tool allows self-training on emotional perception for patients with schizophrenia who present emotional perception deficits. This tool also leads to a clinical improvement in patients

Randomized Clinical Trial with e-MotionalTraining® 1.0 for Social Cognition Rehabilitation in Schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia patients present deficits in social cognition (SC), emotion and social perception, theory of mind (ToM), and attributional style. This study tested the efficacy, in real clinical conditions, of a online self-training program in SC, e-Motional Training®, in comparison with treatment as usual. METHOD: A randomized single-blinded multicenter clinical trial was conducted with 60 schizophrenia stable outpatients. All patients (control and intervention) were treated with drug therapy, case management, and individual and group psychotherapy (not focused on SC). Intervention group was treated with e-Motional Training®, an online program devised for SC rehabilitation. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: A descriptive analysis and parametric/non-parametric tests were used to compare both groups at baseline. Analysis of covariance was used to compared post-pre changes in SC between the two interventions. If the group effect was significant, follow-up univariate test (t-test for dependent samples) was carried out in each group to verify whether the effect was due to improvement in the intervention group or deterioration in the control group. We considered statistically significant differences with P < 0.05. RESULTS: Significant improvements were obtained in the intervention group in emotion recognition and most ToM variables in comparison with the control group. DISCUSSION: e-Motional Training® seems to be a promising online training tool for SC deficits in schizophrenia, covering the lack of similar intervention instruments in our community.