Teaching Grocery Shopping Skills to People with Schizophrenia

Abstract

A pilot study was conducted to determine if a grocery shopping intervention improved skills in people with schizophrenia. The intervention was designed to compensate for cognitive impairments by providing strategies that organize and simplify the task and the environment. Thirty-eight people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder completed at least six of the nine sessions of the intervention. A pretest/posttest comparison indicated that participants improved in accuracy and redundancy but not in time. The results support the efficacy of the intervention. Future research will include cognitive predictors of skill acquisition, comparisons with a control group, and an extension of the outcome measures.