Sensky (2000)

Aims

To test the effectiveness of CBT on schizophrenic patients.

Procedures

90 patients from 5 clinical services in England between 16-60 years.

They had experienced distressing symptoms of schizophrenia for the past six months, even with antipsychotics.

They received CBT for 9 months and were then checked up.

Findings

• No significant between-group differences in treatment duration.
• Both interventions resulted in significant reductions in positive and negative symptoms and depression.
• At the 9-month follow-up evaluation, patients who had received cognitive therapy continued to improve, while those in the befriending group did not.
• These results were not attributable to changes in prescribed medication.

Conclusions

If a schizophrenic patient is treated with CBT, their positive and negative symptoms will be reduced, and the effects will remain for a long-period of time.

Strengths:

• Effective – the study was successful in reducing the positive and negative effects and it gave evidence that CBT can work for schizophrenia.
• Combination – CBT can be used with other therapies and can therefore help on more effects of schizophrenia.
• No side effects – there are no chemicals involved, therefore no side effects are caused by the use of CBT.

Weaknesses:

• Ungeneralizable – the study may be affected by cultural bias since it was only conducted in the UK, which may decrease the applicability of the results to the wider generation. Also, the sample was relatively small when compared to the number of people that have schizophrenia.
• Expensive – CBT is quite costly and time consuming as patients need to see therapists at least once a week.