A new way of predicting everyday life functioning: Validation of a Computerized Meeting Preparation Task with persons diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Deficits in everyday life functioning are a core feature of persons diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, functional outcome is usually evaluated with questionnaires and performance-based assessments, all of which contain a number of limits. We developed a computerized real-life activity task (meeting preparation task) where participants are required to prepare a meeting room. Twenty-one individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and 21 matched healthy controls completed the task. Patients were also evaluated with a cognitive battery and measures of symptomatology and functional outcome. Results showed that performance on the computerized task significantly differentiated patients and controls for a certain number of variables. These variables, combined into a composite score, were significantly correlated with both cognitive functioning and functional outcome. Moreover, this composite score significantly predicted 39% of functional outcome, whereas a cognitive composite score did not reach significance. In addition, when the meeting task composite score was combined with symptomatology and the cognitive composite score, these measures significantly predicted 70% of functional outcome. These findings suggest that the meeting preparation task provides a valid and significant indication of the level of everyday life functioning in patients with schizophrenia, and may be viewed as a valuable instrument in both an evaluation and remediation context.