Buonocore M, et al. - This retrospective study was performed to assess recovery in a sample of patients with chronic schizophrenia engaged in rehabilitation programs and to investigate contributing factors, with a focus on of socio-cognitive rehabilitative interventions. The authors concluded that in patients treated with psycho-social interventions, there was a possibility of achieving high rates of recovery. They suggested that rehabilitative programs targeting social cognition could further facilitate the process of recovery. These results could have relevant implications for daily clinical practice and service provision, allowing clinicians to develop and optimize specific rehabilitation programs in order to promote recovery if confirmed.

• For this study, the authors retrospectively examined data from 104 patients with schizophrenia treated either with a standard rehabilitation program including cognitive remediation (n = 46) or the latter plus a specific socio-cognitive intervention (n = 58).
• In addition, analyses were conducted for psychopathology, cognition, social cognition and Quality of Life Scale (QLS).

• In this sample, recovery was achieved by 56.76% of patients, evaluated with QLS.
• The participation to the socio-cognitive rehabilitative interventions was positively correlated with recovery, while no effects were observed for clinical, cognitive and socio-cognitive variables.