Treatment of impaired affective information processing and social cognition in neuropsychiatric patients: A systematic review

Contains fulltext : 136285.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Objective: Impairments in affective information processing (AIP) and social cognition (SC) have been associated with psychiatric disorders, inadequate social interaction, and lowered self-esteem. Consequently, problems in AIP and SC impede daily functioning and affect quality of life. Promoting improvement of AIP and SC in patient populations has been the subject of many intervention studies during the last two decades. The aim of the current study is to identify effective elements of these interventions. Participants and Methods: A systematic literature search was performed in PubMed, PsycINFO and Web of Knowledge databases (2003 until 2013). Articles were selected if they described interventions for improving AIP and SC in adult patients with brain damage or neuropsychiatric disorders, and if a pre- and post test design was used. Studies were excluded if a client control group was lacking, outcome measures were not cognitive or behavioural in nature, the sample size was smaller than 10, or effect sizes were unknown. Results: The initial search returned 2,439 hits. After detailed inspection of title and abstract, 261 records were identified to be relevant, of which 24 articles met the inclusion criteria. Described interventions were predominantly developed for people with psychotic disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and anxiety/mood disorders. The majority of studies focused on the amelioration of problems in one or more of the following problem areas: emotion perception, social perception, mentalisation/Theory of Mind, attributional style, cognitive skills, and social functioning. Conclusions: This systematic literature search showed that both targeted and broad based interventions have the potential to improve AIP and SC in neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the different ingredients have still been insufficiently investigated with respect to their unique and combined effects.1 p