Abstract
BackgroundEarly detection and intervention in schizophrenia are important in improving quality of life after treatment and are major issues in psychiatric care. Therefore, it is necessary to increase knowledge of schizophrenia among the general public. Among parents of junior and senior high school students in Japan, we compared rates of correct answers for items on knowledge of schizophrenia and ability to discriminate this psychosis from other disorders on questionnaires given before and after viewing a web-based education program.MethodsQuestionnaires were distributed to 2,690 parents. The program was developed to help parents obtain a basic understanding of schizophrenia and to emphasize the necessity of early detection.ResultsBefore the program, the rate of correct answers was 77% for items concerning basic knowledge of schizophrenia, 47% for "discrimination of schizophrenia symptoms," and 30% for "discrimination of prodromal symptoms." The program resulted in an improvement in basic knowledge of schizophrenia, discrimination of schizophrenia symptoms, and discrimination of prodromal symptoms (P < 0.001 for all).ConclusionsOur web-based education program was useful in helping parents acquire a basic knowledge of schizophrenia and discriminate correctly the symptoms of schizophrenia.
Highlights
Detection and intervention in schizophrenia are important in improving quality of life after treatment and are major issues in psychiatric care
We investigate the effectiveness of a web-based education program that aimed to improve understanding of schizophrenia among 2,690 Japanese parents of adolescents
After viewing the present education program, there were relative increases of 31% and 14% in the rates of correct answers for the items regarding discrimination of prodromal symptoms and the symptoms of schizophrenia, respectively, on the “after” questionnaire. These findings suggest that education programs can improve the ability to discriminate between schizophrenia and other disorders, and web-based presentations using a limited number of slides in a short time can be effective
Summary
Detection and intervention in schizophrenia are important in improving quality of life after treatment and are major issues in psychiatric care. Delayed detection of schizophrenia and the resulting prolongation of the duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) are viewed as serious issues in the mental health field [1,2,3]. One is lack of basic knowledge of the symptoms of the disease [9,10,11,12] Those without an understanding of the symptoms of schizophrenia may miss the onset of the illness in people close to them. If parents are able to identify the symptoms of schizophrenia at an early stage, they are more likely to seek appropriate medical care for their children [1,7]
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