No abstract

Psychotic disorders occupy an essential place in the structure of general morbidity of the population, affect quality and life expectancy, reduce working capacity and often cause disability. Psychotic symptoms cause significant distress in patients and lead to alterations in important spheres of life, such as social functioning, and could be the cause of suicidal or socially dangerous behavior. According to the World Health Organization, schizophrenia affects about 21 million people, worldwide. The onset of the disease occurs in adolescents and early adulthood, with a range of 15-29 years. The present paper aims to investigate the features of the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques and their effectiveness in the treatment of early stages of psychosis. This study presents already existing systemic literature reviews and meta-analyses on the topic of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) of psychotic disorders, namely devoted to CBT of the first psychotic episode. Besides, it examines the effectiveness of the use of CBT not only in the prodromal stage of psychosis and during its manifestation, as well as in the remission period as a method for preventing recurrence. According to the data, CBT is a useful and scientifically based method in the combined therapy of patients in the early stages of the course of psychotic illness. CBT early interventions reduce positive and negative symptoms severity, improve access to engagement with treatment, which also reduces hospital admission and relapse rates.

Each year the European Psychiatric Association offers early career psychiatrists the opportunity to take part in the Gaining Experience programme, a scholarship that funds short observership placements (between 2 and 8 weeks) overseas in different psychiatric institutions across Europe to ECPs who have completed their psychiatric training. However, since COVID-19 was declared by the WHO as a worldwide emergency on 11th March 2020, it was no longer possible to provide offline overseas observerships. Therefore, the Gaining Experience programme changed its format in 2020-2021 and became virtual. It was in this context, that an Ukranian early career psychiatrist was going to participate in the virtual Gaining Experience programme at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London (United Kingdom) from December 2021. The observership placement had a particular academic focus, the essence of which was investigating psychotherapy training among ECPs in Ukraine, and to examine how it is included in psychiatry training. The sharing of this example of virtual observership shows that it is possible and feasible high-quality and affordable distance learning for ECPs. This training format can be useful not only during quarantine restrictions, but also in conditions of limited travel opportunities.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared