Speech-language intervention in schizophrenia: an integrative review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: to perform an integrative review to identify speech and language pathology intervention for schizophrenia. Methods: the review covered SCIELO, PUBMED, OXFORD JOURNALS and SCIENCEDIRECT databases for speech and language pathology intervention studies for schizophrenia. A narrative synthesis was adopted considering the level of clinical and methodological heterogeneity amid studies. Results: the results demonstrated an increase in publications since 2012 with 11 articles meeting the criteria. Language and discourse assessment were the speech and language pathology privileged procedures. Conclusion: the review indicates that the most eligible intervention was assessment, that studies’ methodology were heterogeneous and that the communication disorders identified were related to discursive, pragmatic and syntactic disorders, which evidences the importance of more systematized intervention procedures and research on schizophrenic patients.