Psychological interventions in psychosis in children and adolescents: a systematic review.

Abstract

Early onset psychosis (EOP), referring to psychosis with onset before the age of 18 years, is a more severe form of psychosis associated with worse prognosis. While medication is the treatment of choice, psychological interventions are also considered to have an important role in the management of symptoms and disability associated with this condition. The present review aimed to explore the effectiveness of such interventions. An electronic search was conducted on the Embase, Medline, and PsychInfo databases for papers of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) referring to psychological interventions in EOP. References of identified papers were hand searched for additional studies. Identified studies were quality assessed. Eight studies were included in the present review evaluating cognitive remediation therapy (CRT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a family intervention and psychoeducation. CRT was associated with improvement in cognitive function and CBT and CRT seem to also have a positive effect in psychosocial functioning. Symptom reduction appears to not be significantly affected by the proposed treatments. There is some evidence supporting the effectiveness of psychological interventions in EOP. However, most research on adolescents is focused on CRT and its effects on cognitive deficits. More studies on the effects of psychological interventions in EOP are needed.