Combined Oxytocin and Cognitive Behavioral Social Skills Training for Social Function in People With Schizophrenia

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Oxytocin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Intranasal oxytocin also has prosocial effects, but also only with modest effect sizes.

This study assessed whether the addition of intranasal oxytocin to CBSST can strengthen their impact on social function.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Participants (N = 62) with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder entered a 24-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial with a 3-month follow-up evaluation at 2 sites: Maryland and San Diego.

All participants received CBSST plus a social cognition skills training module (48 total sessions).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Oxytocin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

As a double-blind Oxytocin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Oxytocin could be set against what happens without it.

What Was Measured

This study assessed whether the addition of intranasal oxytocin to CBSST can strengthen their impact on social function.

The subject headings attached to it are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Combined Modality Therapy, Oxytocin, Psychotic Disorders, Schizophrenia and Social Skills.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Its findings take up roughly 3 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2021 (Journal of clinical psychopharmacology), a journal based in United States.

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