Efficacy and durability of cognitive behavior therapy in managing hallucination in patients with schizophrenia

The cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) approach to psychosis is a relatively recent development and focuses directly on the core psychotic symptoms of hallucinations and delusions.

The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy of cognitive behavior therapy in managing hallucination in patients with schizophrenia and to evaluate the generalizability and durability of the therapeutic gains.

In this confirmatory pre-post assessment study, based on the purposive sampling technique, a sample consisting of 40 (20 for experimental and the other 20 for control group) patients having schizophrenia with core symptoms of hallucination and delusions under treatment as usual were selected and matched on the sociodemographic and clinical variables. For the clinical variables, the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scale and Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms were used. After baseline assessment, the cognitive behavioral program was tailored on the experimental group and patients of both the group were reassessed after the completion of treatment. Follow-up data to see the durability of program were taken from all the patients of experimental and control groups.

Cognitive behavior therapy was found to be effective for the treatment of auditory hallucination in schizophrenia. The therapeutic gains in all study variables were found to be maintained or further improving at follow-up which proves that cognitive behavior therapy is durable.

Cognitive behavior therapy in conjunction with pharmacotherapy was found to be more effective in improving clinical symptoms of schizophrenia and global functioning compared to pharmacotherapy alone.