The effects of combined oxytocin and cognitive behavioral social skills training on social cognition in schizophrenia

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Oxytocin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

One reason for inconsistency may be that oxytocin has typically not been combined with psychosocial interventions.

It may be necessary for individuals with schizophrenia to receive concurrent psychosocial treatment while taking oxytocin to have the context needed to make gains in social cognitive skills.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

The current study tested this hypothesis in a 24-week (48 session) double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that combined oxytocin and Cognitive-Behavioral Social Skills Training (CBSST), which included elements from Social Cognition and Interaction Training (SCIT).

Participants completed a battery of measures administered at 0, 12, and 24 weeks that assessed social cognition.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Oxytocin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Oxytocin.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Oxytocin group a baseline to be compared against.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Combined Modality Therapy, Interpersonal Relations, Oxytocin, Schizophrenia, Social Perception and Social Skills.

Author keywords: psychosis and social cognition.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Oxytocin.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2019 (Psychological medicine), a journal based in England.

More context: the Oxytocin compound page, all human trials.