Cognitive-Behavioral Social Skills Training Adapted for Youth at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

Abstract

Interventions for functional impairments in adolescents and young adults at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis are needed. Cognitive-Behavioral Social Skills Training (CBSST) has been found to improve functioning in patients with schizophrenia. The CBSST manual was adapted for CHR and implemented across 3 sites. The key changes that were made were to present a focus of normalization and destigmatization of attenuated psychotic symptoms and since CBSST has a major focus on role plays, problem solving and challenging thoughts, examples of these were changed to be more appropriate for this young CHR population. We describe the manual modifications and present fidelity data to examine the success of training and supervision methods in a multi-site randomized controlled trial of CBSST in CHR youth. Fidelity was high and comparable across sites. Case vignettes are presented to demonstrate how CBSST techniques were adapted for UHR individuals to target functional impairments.

Keywords: Cognitive Behavioral Social Skills Training; clinical high risk; psychosis.