Abstract
Family members often play a vital role as caregivers in the lives of individuals with schizophrenia. RESULTS of the studies showed that family invironment is the most important determinint of patients outcomes like as quality of life, relapse, adherence. This study aimed to determine the effect of group psychoeducational programme on attitude towards mental illness in families of patients with schizophrenia. In this quasi-experimental study, 74 families who have schizophrenic patients hospitalized in psychiatric wards during sampling were selected by convenience sampling method. Then the sample was randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The families of experimental group received 8 continuous 90-minute 3 times a week psychoeducational sessions. Family attitude towards mental illness was measured using the questionnaire of Opinion about Mental Illnesses (OMI) before and after intervention. Data analysis was conducted using χ(2) test, independent t-test, and paired t-test on SPSS software version 13. The results showed that majority of the families had negative attitude towards mental illness (88.90%). In addition, the results showed that there was significant difference between different dimensions of attitude towards mental illness before and after psychoeducation in the experimental group. The mean score of families' post-test in the experimental group increased compared to control group 108.86 (14.9), vs. 88.86 (7.5). The results of this study indicate that psychoeducation improves family attitude towards mental illness. Training methods like group psych education for the families of mental patients can be effective on their attitudes towards mental illness.
Highlights
Members often play a vital role as caregivers in the lives of individuals with schizophrenia
The results showed that the patients in the experimental group significantly showed more improvement and lower relapse in comparison with the patients of the control group.19It can be concluded that the family environment should not be ignored in the disease process
Since no similar study was found in Iran in the search of the databases, this study aimed to examine the effect of group psychoeducational programme on attitudes toward mental illness in families of patients with schizophrenia.We hope that the results can be helpful to introduce the best way to improve attitude toward mental patients in the family
Summary
Members often play a vital role as caregivers in the lives of individuals with schizophrenia. This study aimed to determine the effect of group psychoeducational programme on attitude towards mental illness in families of patients with schizophrenia. The results showed that there was significant difference between different dimensions of attitude towards mental illness before and after psychoeducation in the experimental group. In comparison with other psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia has the highest rate of hospitalization.[1] Emotional, social, and financial consequences of mental illness cause significant effects on their families. The outcomes of living with a psychiatric patient can include: family burden, fear of mental illness signs and symptoms, uncertainty about causes of the disease, lack of social support, and stigma.[2] Results of researches acknowledged that attitude towards mental illness is one of the most important determinant factors in the recovery process in the mental ill patients. Stigma causes the following effects on patient’s life: (a) the patient feels inability to achieve social ideals due to the symptoms and the negative outcomes of the disease, feeling shame and hopeless; (b) the patient tries to hide his disease for self-protection by isolation and withdrawal himself from society; and c) the patient losses individual and social rights.[8]
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