Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Individuals with first episode psychosis or emerging schizophrenia are a vulnerable, high-needs population who often present with co-occurring substance use. Unfortunately, substance use significantly worsens the course of schizophrenia through exacerbation of symptoms and interference with motivation and ability to attend treatment or take medication. Furthermore, evidence on the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions for substance use in people with schizophrenia is limited, as they are often excluded from evaluations. Even so, studies have found that people with schizophrenia have a difficult time engaging with substance use interventions due to clinical symptoms and cognitive deficits. Interestingly, mindfulness based relapse prevention (MBRP) has been gaining traction as a treatment for otherwise healthy individuals with substance use disorders. Moreover, cognitive adaptation training (CAT) has been shown to facilitate patient engagement with other psychosocial treatments as well as improve cognitive deficits in a compensatory manner. Thus, in collaboration with the Forensic Early Intervention Service at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, I am proposing a feasibility evaluation of an integrated intervention for people with co-occurring schizophrenia and substance use to investigate whether CAT facilitated MBRP significantly reduces substance use in people with schizophrenia with secondary aims of assessing improvements in negative symptoms and cognitive deficits. Results will be used to inform a future pilot and subsequent large-scale clinical trial.