Improvements in spontaneity and social functioning in patients with schizophrenia after cognitive training

Abstract Cognitive rehabilitation approaches are in the spotlight as a novel strategy for promoting social participation in patients with schizophrenia, as the connection between cognitive deficits and functional outcomes in schizophrenia has been consistently demonstrated over the last decade. Divergent thinking is typically applied when someone is confronted with questions that do not have a single fixed answer. We identified divergent thinking deficits in patients with schizophrenia using qualitative measures involving idea and design fluency tests, and found that the impairment in generating high-quality responses on divergent thinking tasks was an important determinant of poor community functioning among patients. Based on our findings, we suggested that divergent thinking was an important neurocognitive skill that deserves consideration as a potential target for intervention, and developed a training program specifically for divergent thinking deficits in patients with schizophrenia. We evaluated the effects of this program on measures of divergent thinking (e.g., fluency measures), negative symptoms, and social functioning. After the training program, participants in the divergent thinking program had significantly greater improvements on measures of idea fluency, negative symptoms, and interpersonal relations than the participants in the control program. These results suggest that interventions for divergent thinking in patients with schizophrenia may lead to improvements in patients' social functioning. In recent years, intrinsic motivation has become a focus of attention as a critical mechanism for explaining the relationship between neurocognition and psychosocial functioning in patients with schizophrenia. Divergent thinking is thought to be relevant to spontaneity and intrinsic motivation. The training program for divergent thinking deficits may have achieved its effects on negative symptoms and social functioning through an improvement in spontaneity and intrinsic motivation. The potential of the cognitive training program to enhance patients' quality of life is discussed.