A pilot study of an illness management and recovery program in discharged patients with schizophrenia.
BACKGROUND
Accumulated evidence supports the effectiveness of equipping chronically ill patients with illness management knowledge and skills. The Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) program developed by the United States government has been widely adopted for persons with mental illness. However, few studies support its effectiveness in patients with schizophrenia.


OBJECTIVE
This pilot study developed a culturally adapted and abbreviated version of the IMR for Taiwanese patients with schizophrenia who were ready for discharge from the hospital. Furthermore, we investigated the impact of the program in terms of illness knowledge, drug attitude, insight, and psychopathology.


METHODS
The original IMR was condensed and modified for implementation during participants' preparation for hospital discharge. Using a preexperimental design, pretest and posttest assessments for a single group of 26 participants received the new IMR twice a week for 3 weeks on the four outcome indicators of illness knowledge, drug attitude, insight, and psychopathology.


RESULTS
Participants improved in terms of treatment-related illness knowledge, insight, and affective-domain psychopathology (p < .01) after intervention completion. Average participant attendance was 5.45 sessions out of 6 total sessions.


CONCLUSIONS
The intensive symptom and medication-focused IMR model for soon-to-be-discharged patients with schizophrenia had positive impacts on illness management. In the future, studies using a two-group randomized controlled design and extended follow-up should be conducted to determine the long-term effects of IMR.
1PhD, RN, Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing National Cheng Kung University, and Affiliated Head Nurse, National Cheng Kung University Hospital 2RN, Director, Department of Nursing, Tsaotun Psychiatric Center 3MD, Head, Department of Psychiatry, Taichung Veterans General Hospital 4PhD, RN, Department of Nursing, Cardinal Tien College of Healthcare & Management 5MD, Department of Psychiatry, Chiayi Veterans Hospital 6MD, Department of Psychiatry, Da Chien General Hospital.
Esther Ching-Lan
EC
Lin
Wen-Chuan
WC
Shao
Chin Hong
CH
Chan
Shujen
S
Shiau
Hong-Song
HS
Wang
Shi-Chi
SC
Huang
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010351:Patient Discharge; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000534:rehabilitation / Q000628:therapy*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012648:Self Care / Q000523:psychology*; D013624:Taiwan; D016896:Treatment Outcome