An examination of the efficacy of social skills training for chronic schizophrenic patients.

To study the efficacy of social skills training and day hospital treatment for schizophrenic patients, the authors treated 20 chronic schizophrenic patients in a 12-week day hospital program and 44 patients in the same program supplemented by comprehensive social skills training. While both groups of patients who completed treatment showed improvement immediately following treatment, during the six-month posttreatment period patients who had received social skills training either continued to improve or maintained their gains on most measures, while the patients receiving day hospital treatment alone either maintained gains or lost them. The authors discuss the implications of these findings as well as the finding that almost half of the patients in both groups were hospitalized at least once in the year following treatment.