Samsung Medical Center
Seoul, 06351, South Korea
Location status: Recruiting
NCT Number: NCT07755605
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and preliminary effectiveness of a smartphone-based digital therapeutic application (AffectUs) for improving social cognition, particularly emotion processing and social cue perception, in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
In this randomized controlled trial, participants will be assigned either to use AffectUs for 10 weeks in addition to treatment as usual or to receive psychoeducational materials and treatment as usual. Participants will complete assessments at baseline, week 5, week 10, and week 15 to evaluate social cognition, clinical outcomes, and safety.
Interested in participating?
Request Info19 year–60 year
All sexes
Interventional
Not applicable
Seoul, 06351, South Korea
Location status: Recruiting
Social cognition refers to the mental processes involved in perceiving, interpreting, and reasoning about others' emotions, intentions, and behaviors. Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders consistently exhibit deficits in social cognition, which are associated with impaired social functioning and psychosocial outcomes and remain an important treatment target despite pharmacological management.
Although psychosocial interventions targeting social cognition have demonstrated beneficial effects, their implementation is often limited by the need for prolonged, therapist-led, in-person treatment. Recent studies suggest that digital interventions may improve accessibility while producing meaningful improvements in core social cognitive domains, particularly emotion processing and social cue perception.
Based on this evidence, AffectUs was developed as a smartphone-based digital therapeutic application that provides brief, repeated, remote training in emotion processing and social cue perception for individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. This exploratory study evaluates the safety and preliminary effectiveness of AffectUs and aims to provide foundational evidence for future confirmatory clinical trials of digital therapeutics for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
Healthy volunteers accepted: No
Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.
A. Inclusion Criteria
Participants must meet all of the following criteria:
Exclusion criteria
A smartphone-based digital therapeutic application (AffectUs) that provides structured social cognition training focused on emotion processing and social cue perception. Participants use the application five times per week for approximately 10-15 minutes per session over a 10-week period (total 50 sessions). The program is self-guided and delivered through a smartphone application.
Other names: Digital therapeutic application for social cognition training
Structured psychoeducational materials providing information about schizophrenia, medication adherence, stress management, and daily self-management. Participants receive one psychoeducational module per week over a 10-week period. The content is informational and does not include social cognition training components.
Other names: Schizophrenia management education
Time frame: Baseline and Week 10 (end of treatment)
hange from baseline to Week 10 in performance on the Korean Facial Emotion Identification Test (K-FEIT) and Korean Facial Emotion Differentiation Test (K-FEDT).
Performance is measured as the proportion of correct responses across all items, ranging from 0 to 1. Higher scores indicate greater accuracy and better emotion recognition performance.
Time frame: Baseline and Week 10 (end of treatment)
Change from baseline to Week 10 in performance on a video-based social cue perception task assessing the ability to interpret social situations and contextual social cues. The total score ranges from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating better social cue perception performance.
Time frame: Baseline and Week 5
Change from baseline to Week 5 in performance on the Korean Facial Emotion Identification Test (K-FEIT) and Korean Facial Emotion Differentiation Test (K-FEDT). Performance is measured as the proportion of correct responses across all items, ranging from 0 to 1. Higher scores indicate greater accuracy and better emotion recognition performance.
Time frame: Baseline and Week 15
Change from baseline to Week 15 in performance on the Korean Facial Emotion Identification Test (K-FEIT) and Korean Facial Emotion Differentiation Test (K-FEDT). Performance is measured as the proportion of correct responses across all items, ranging from 0 to 1. Higher scores indicate greater accuracy and better emotion recognition performance.
Time frame: Baseline and Week 5
Change from baseline to Week 5 in performance on a clinician-rated, video-based social cue perception task assessing the ability to interpret social situations and contextual social cues. The total score ranges from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating better social cue perception performance.
Time frame: Baseline and Week 15
Change from baseline to Week 15 in performance on a clinician-rated, video-based social cue perception task assessing the ability to interpret social situations and contextual social cues. The total score ranges from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating better social cue perception
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in social functioning as measured by the Social and Occupational Functioning Assessment Scale (SOFAS), a clinician-rated scale. The total score ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better social functioning.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in total and subscale scores on the Korean version of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (K-PANSS). The Positive and Negative subscale scores each range from 7 to 49, the General Psychopathology subscale score ranges from 16 to 112, and the total score ranges from 30 to 210. Higher scores indicate greater schizophrenia symptom severity.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in emotional intelligence as measured by the Emotional Intelligence Diagnostic Test. The total score ranges from 50 to 250, with higher scores indicating better emotional intelligence.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in quality of life as measured by the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF). The WHOQOL-BREF includes four domain scores: Physical Health, Psychological, Social Relationships, and Environment. Each domain score is transformed to a scale ranging from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating better quality of life. Two additional single items assess overall quality of life and satisfaction with general health, each ranging from 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating better overall quality of life and greater satisfaction with health, respectively.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in depressive symptom severity as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). The total score ranges from 0 to 27, with higher scores indicating greater depressive symptom severity.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in anxiety symptom severity as measured by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). The total score ranges from 0 to 21, with higher scores indicating greater anxiety symptom severity.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in perceived stress as measured by the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS-10). The total score ranges from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating greater perceived stress.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
It's not strictly necessary just to satisfy the reviewer's request, but it prevents ambiguity because someone seeing a 6-item scale might otherwise expect the possible score to be 6-30. Stating that the mean score ranges from 1 to 5 makes it immediately clear why the reported range is 1-5.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in self-esteem as measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (R-SES). The total score ranges from 10 to 40, with higher scores indicating higher self-esteem.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in insight as measured by the Birchwood Insight Scale (BIS). The total score ranges from 0 to 16, with higher scores indicating better insight.
Time frame: Baseline, Week 10, and Week 15
Change from baseline in disability and functioning as measured by the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0), 36-item version. Using the complex scoring method, the summary score ranges from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating greater disability and functional impairment.
Time frame: Week 1 to Week 10
Treatment adherence will be assessed based on AffectUs training completion during the 10-week intervention. The training completion rate will be calculated as the percentage of prescribed training sessions completed out of 50 total sessions, ranging from 0% to 100%, with higher percentages indicating greater treatment adherence.
Time frame: Week 5 and Week 10
User satisfaction with the AffectUs program assessed using a single-item satisfaction question in the digital therapeutic group. The score ranges from 1 to 7, with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction.
Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.
Samsung Medical Center
Other
A Prospective, Randomized Parallel, Single Institution, Researcher-led Clinical Trial on the Effect of Improving Social Cognitive Function by Using Digital Therapy Devices in Patients With Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder
OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.
View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.
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