Objective To study the effect of cognitive treatment on the compliance for medication and recrudescence of patients with schizophrenia.Method 106 schizophrenic patients were randomly allocated to the study and the control; both groups treated with antipsychotic medical treatment and health education, while the study group also accepted cognitive psychotherapy. Before treatment and at the ends of 0, 6, 12 months of treatment, the efficacy were investigated using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Insight and Treatment Attitude Questionnaire (ITAQ) and Self-designed Compliance Survey in order to assess the compliance and the recrudescence. Results All the indexes after cognitive psychotherapy were significantly better than those before cognitive psychotherapy. Conclusion The cognitive psychotherapy can effectively reinforce the compliance of patients with schizophrenia, and then improve the quality of life for them.