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Negative symptoms, anxiety, and depression as mechanisms of change of a 12-month trial of assertive community treatment as part of integrated care in patients with first- and multi-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders (ACCESS I trial)

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Abstract

Assertive community treatment (ACT) has shown to be effective in improving both functional deficits and quality of life (QoL) in patients with severe mental illness. However, the mechanisms of this beneficial effect remained unclear. We examined mechanisms of change by testing potential mediators including two subdomains of negative symptoms, i.e. social amotivation as well as expressive negative symptoms, anxiety, and depression within a therapeutic ACT model (ACCESS I trial) in a sample of 120 first- and multi-episode patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (DSM-IV). Path modelling served to test the postulated relationship between the respective treatment condition, i.e. 12-month ACT as part of integrated care versus standard care, and changes in functioning and QoL. The final path model resulted in 3 differential pathways that were all significant. Treatment-induced changes in social amotivation served as a starting point for all pathways, and had a direct beneficial effect on functioning and an additional indirect effect on it through changes in anxiety. Expressive negative symptoms were not related to functioning but served as a mediator between changes in social amotivation and depressive symptoms, which subsequently resulted in improvements in QoL. Our results suggest that social amotivation, expressive negative symptoms, depression, and anxiety functioned as mechanisms of change of ACCESS. An integrated and sequential treatment focusing on these mediators may optimise the generalisation effects on functioning as well as on QoL by targeting the most powerful mechanism of change that fits best to the individual patient.

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Author notes

  1. Stefanie J. Schmidt, Matthias Lange, Benno G. Schimmelmann and Martin Lambert contributed equally to the study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Stefanie J. Schmidt & Benno G. Schimmelmann

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Stefanie J. Schmidt

  3. Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosis Centre, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

    Matthias Lange, Daniel Schöttle, Anne Karow & Martin Lambert

  4. University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

    Benno G. Schimmelmann

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  1. Stefanie J. Schmidt
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  2. Matthias Lange
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  3. Daniel Schöttle
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  5. Benno G. Schimmelmann
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  6. Martin Lambert
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Correspondence to Martin Lambert.

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Financial support

This study was supported by Astra Zeneca. The sponsor was not involved in designing and conducting the study, analysing as well as interpreting the data or writing up the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

Dr Schmidt and Dr Lange have no conflict of interest to declare. Dr Schöttle has received honoraria from Astra Zeneca. Dr Karow has received honoraria from and serves on speakers boards of Astra Zeneca. Dr Schimmelmann has served as paid speaker for Eli Lilly and Shire. Dr Lambert has received grant/research support from and served on speakers or advisory boards of Astra Zeneca and has received honoraria from Astra Zeneca, Eli Lilly, Janssen-Cilag, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Ethical standards

The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals.

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Schmidt, S.J., Lange, M., Schöttle, D. et al. Negative symptoms, anxiety, and depression as mechanisms of change of a 12-month trial of assertive community treatment as part of integrated care in patients with first- and multi-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders (ACCESS I trial). Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 268, 593–602 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-017-0810-1

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