[The Concordance of Rater- and Self-Administration of the Osnabrück Profile of Working Abilities (O-AFP)].

Objectives: The O-AFP can be used as a rater-administered inventory (RAI) and as a self-report scale (SRS). The study analyses the relations between these versions.

Methods: O-AFP-scales for working abilities and work complexity and SCL-90-R data of 88 vocational therapy patients (psychiatric clinic, PC; addiction clinic, AC).

Anterior cingulate cortex activation is related to learning potential on the WCST in schizophrenia patients.

The remediation of executive function in patients with schizophrenia is important in rehabilitation because these skills affect the patient's capacity to function in the community. There is evidence that instructional techniques can improve deficits in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) in some schizophrenia patients. We used a standard test/training phase/standard test format of the WCST to classify 36 schizophrenia patients as high-achievers, learners or non-retainers.

Stigma as a predictor of insight in schizophrenia.

Insight in schizophrenia can be seen as a multifactorial phenomenon. Although multifactorial pathways have also been suggested for insight formation, motivational explanations have rarely been tested. The present study explores stigma as one possible determinant of a motivated lack of insight in integrated models of insight formation.

Learning potential on the WCST in schizophrenia is related to the neuronal integrity of the anterior cingulate cortex as measured by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Background: In recent years, schizophrenia has increasingly been recognized as a neurocognitive disorder, which has led to a growing literature on cognitive rehabilitation, and suggested several potential enhancements to cognitive function. For instance, it has been shown that executive functioning deficits as measured by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) can be modified in a subgroup of schizophrenic patients. The neurobiological basis of cognitive remediation has not been elucidated so far, although structural, functional and metabolic abnormalities of the prefrontal cortex have been associated with cognitive impairment.

A longitudinal study of learning potential and rehabilitation outcome in schizophrenia.

Objective: The study examined whether a measure of learning potential is prospectively related to the success of a vocational rehabilitation program for patients with severe mental illness in Germany.

Methods: At rehabilitation intake (November 2002 to January 2004), 41 persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders completed a test-train-test version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test as a measure of learning potential. Research participants were classified as high scorers, learners, or nonlearners.

[Longer-term effects of inpatient vocational and ergotherapeutic measures on the vocational integration of patients with schizophrenia].

Objective: Unemployment rates are high in people with schizophrenia, so that considerable importance is attached to measures to improve their ability to work and their vocational integration.

Methods: In a study of the German Research Network on Schizophrenia the long-term effects of four-week vocational and ergotherapeutic measures on in-patients were investigated. The target criteria were the vocational integration, level of general functioning (Global Assessment of Functioning Scale) and psychopathology (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale).

[Vocational therapy in schizophrenia: effects only with some patients and with which patients?].

Objectives: In a previous study the effectiveness of vocational therapy was evaluated using the Osnabrück Profile of Working Abilities (O-AFP). No or only minor effects were detected. The goal of this reanalysis is to identify distinct responder groups.

[Do the effects of inpatient vocational therapy and ergotherapy approaches differ in schizophrenic patients? Results of a controlled multicenter study of the german research network on schizophrenia].

For some decades, vocational therapy approaches have been an integral part of inpatient psychiatric treatment of patients with schizophrenia. Like most sociotherapeutic measures, they are largely hypothesis-based. So far, their effectiveness has been subjected to very little scientific scrutiny.

Dynamic testing in schizophrenia: does training change the construct validity of a test?

Dynamic testing typically involves specific interventions for a test to assess the extent to which test performance can be modified, beyond level of baseline (static) performance. This study used a dynamic version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) that is based on cognitive remediation techniques within a test-training-test procedure. From results of previous studies with schizophrenia patients, we concluded that the dynamic and static versions of the WCST should have different construct validity.

[The work personality profile: an instrument for the assessment of the work competence of psychiatric patients].

The "Work Personality Profile", which assesses via supervisor ratings the basic work competences of psychiatric patients on eleven scales, was translated and adapted for use in German psychiatric institutions. Test analysis of data of 58 patients, most of whom were schizophrenic, yielded good statistical indicators for most of the scales. Factor analyses indicated a structure of two to three components: Learning ability, social and interactional competence, and social adaptation and motivation.