SA24. Mindfulness Interventions in Early Psychosis: A Feasibility Study to Assess Neurocognitive and Biomarker Outcomes

Abstract

Background: Preventive treatment for early psychosis is moving toward the goal of implementing mindfulness-based interventions. There are an increasing, but limited, number of studies indicating that mindfulness training may be benefcial for people experiencing psychosis. To determine mindfulness feasibility and effcacy, there is a need to select, adapt, and evaluate intervention studies. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of a mindfulness intervention in early psychosis patients within a psychiatric outpatient setting, and to examine whether patients deem it a satisfactory intervention. Method(s): All patients will be in an early episode psychosis (onset within the last 2 years) per the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5-SCID. Acceptable diagnoses will include Psychosis NOS, Schizophreniform, Schizophrenia, and Schizoaffective disorder. In addition to treatment as usual (TAU), participants will be randomly allocated to receive either the mindfulness intervention or the recreational group therapy control intervention. Mindfulness practices include breathing meditation, body scan, and metta (Loving Kindness) meditation. Both conditions will meet once a week for a total of 6 weeks. Each weekly session will be 90 minutes in duration. Feasibility will be assessed by group attendance in each arm as well as a post study survey. Pilot data on clinical outcome measures, includ-ing symptom severity, psychosocial functioning, neurocognitive measures using an expanded MATRICS, and peripheral biomarker assays at baseline, 6 weeks (at the conclusion of each intervention) and 12 weeks (6 weeks after completion) will be collected. Result(s): A total of 20 individuals will be enrolled; 8 subjects have been col-lected. Of the participants randomly assigned to the intervention groups, mindfulness-based intervention mean attendance = 72.2%, whereas recre-ational group control intervention mean attendance = 56.6%. Further data collection will yield precision estimates on feasibility, and outcomes on effcacy. Conclusion(s): This will be a proof-of-concept study to collect preliminary data and has the following two aims: 1) to test the acceptability, feasibility and clinical utility of introducing mindfulness techniques in patients who have experienced psychotic symptoms, and 2) to specifcally measure the effects of mindfulness vs recreational therapy on clinical, neurocognitive, functional and biological outcomes in patients who have experienced new onset psychotic symptoms. Adapting mindfulness-based interventions to ft into the service delivery context found in psychiatric outpatient settings may substantially increase the number of individuals with early psychosis who may beneft from empirically supported treatments.