Health education with behavioral rehabilitation training as the main content
Su Taiqing randomly divided 120 schizophrenia inpatients with first-episode into a control group and a study group, with 60 patients in each group. On the basis of conventional drug treatment, the control group received 8 weeks of traditional health education, while the study group implemented a health education program with behavioral rehabilitation training as the main content, lasting for 8 weeks, 1 h. once. daily. The specific arrangement is as follows: First, during 1st to 2nd week, (1) Establish a good nurse-patient relationship, understand the main psychological problems of the patients, and require the patients to persist in reading books on life philosophy and writing weekly notes. (2) Taking the basic principle of Morita therapy “let nature take its course” as the guideline, guide patients to face reality and treat psychological conflicts correctly. Second, during the 3rd to 5th week: Encourage patients to participate in sports and entertainment activities. Third, during the 6th to 8th week: (1) Social adaptation and interpersonal relationship simulation training. (2) Discharge education, helping patients analyze the causes of the disease, summarize the patterns of the disease, promote knowledge of preventing recurrence, and enhance psychological resilience. (3) Discussion, including personalized analysis of the patient’s psychological issues, feedback and encouragement on the patient’s weekly notes or experiences, and inspiring the patient. The results showed that there was no significant difference in various indicators of the Digital Transfer Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test between the two groups during the first week; At the end of the 8th week of health education, the net scores of the two groups of digital cancellation tests were significantly improved compared to before health education, and the error rates were significantly reduced. However, the net score of the study group was more significantly improved than the control group, and the error rate decreased more significantly than the control group; Compared with before health education, the total number of tests, continuous errors, and random errors in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in both groups decreased, while the number of correct classifying increased. However, the changes in the study group were more significant than those in the control group.
Author(s) Details:
Hou Yongmei
Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Management, Guangdong Medical University,
Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China.
Recent Global Research Developments in Improving Medication Adherence in Schizophrenia
Expert Roundtable on Schizophrenia Treatment:
- A roundtable of experts discussed the current treatment landscape for schizophrenia.
- Unmet needs include better implementation of available treatments, addressing negative and cognitive symptoms, and improving medication adherence.
- Novel mechanisms of action (MOAs) are sought to target a wider range of symptoms.
- Promising MOAs include muscarinic receptor agonism, trace amine-associated receptor 1 agonism, serotonin receptor antagonism/inverse agonism, and glutamatergic modulation [1].
Interventions to Improve Medication Adherence:
- Various interventions have been studied to enhance medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia.
- These interventions include electronic monitoring, simplified dosing, supervised medication taking, reminder systems, depot medications, and psychotherapeutic approaches [2].
Strategies for Improving Adherence:
- Strategies such as electronic monitoring, simplified dosing, and psychotherapeutic interventions can increase adherence.
- Poor adherence contributes to relapse and rehospitalization rates in schizophrenia patients [3].
References
- Joshua T Kantrowitz, Christoph U Correll, Rakesh Jain, Andrew J Cutler, New Developments in the Treatment of Schizophrenia: An Expert Roundtable, International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, Volume 26, Issue 5, May 2023, Pages 322–330, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijnp/pyad011
- Loots, E., Goossens, E., Vanwesemael, T., Morrens, M., Van Rompaey, B., & Dilles, T. (2021). Interventions to improve medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(19), 10213.
- Goff, D. C., Hill, M., & Freudenreich, O. (2010). Strategies for improving treatment adherence in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 71(suppl 2), 20033.
