Family Motivational Intervention in Schizophrenia (FMI)

Motivational Interviewing and Interaction Skills Training for Carers to Change Cannabis Use in Young Adults With Recent-onset Schizophrenia: Randomised Controlled Trial

Cannabis use by people with schizophrenia is associated with family distress and poor clinical outcomes. Therefore, an Family Motivational Intervention (FMI) was developed to help parents to motivate their child with a diagnoses of recent-onset schizophrenia to reduce cannabis use. In a single-blind randomised clinical trail with 75 patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, parents will be assigned to either FMI or to routine care. Assessments will be conducted at baseline and at a 10- and 22-month follow-up. The study hypothesis is that FMI will be more effective than routine care in reducing (a) cannabis use in patients and (b) distress and sense of burden in parents.

An intervention provided to parents consisting of 6 sessions of training in Interactions Skills and 6 sessions training in Motivational Interviewing.

A intervention with provided parents 6 sessions of Interaction Skills training and 6 sessions Motivational Interviewing training.

Inclusion Criteria: Clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia or psychotic-related disorder Onset of schizophrenia or related disorder within pervious the 10 years Cannabis use at least 2 days per week in the 3 months prior to the assessment Antipsychotic medication in prescribed or indicated At least 10 hours of contact with the parents each week in the last month Exclusion Criteria: -

Dekker N, Smeerdijk AM, Wiers RW, Duits JH, van Gelder G, Houben K, Schippers G, Linszen DH, de Haan L. Implicit and explicit affective associations towards cannabis use in patients with recent-onset schizophrenia and healthy controls. Psychol Med. 2010 Aug;40(8):1325-36. doi: 10.1017/S0033291709991814. Epub 2009 Nov 17.