Social Intervention as an Adjuvant Therapy for Patients with Schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is one of the most debilitating psychiatric disorders due to its medical, social, professional and relational disability. With the lack of any progress made in the pharmaceutic treatment of this disorder in the last twenty years, developing adjuvant therapies to help patients live a normal professional and social life comes with great importance. Our study was conducted on 88 participants, which were recruited during an acute episode of schizophrenia at the Socola University Hospital, Iasi, Romania. These patients were randomly assigned to two experimental groups: one group received a social intervention consisting of one year of Behavioral Family Management (BFM), and the other group received the Supportive Family Management (SFM) intervention. The results of our study showed that the social intervention, whether it was behavioral or supportive, dramatically decreased the scores on the BPRS (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale). At baseline our patients had mean score of 84.4 (SD=12.3). After 12 months of social intervention the mean scores for BPRS were 38.8 (SD=11.6) for the BFM group and 37.7 (SD=10.5) for the SFM group. The results of our study suggest that a more holistic approach in treating schizophrenia is needed. Working with the families of the patients in various forms of therapy might help not only with the decrease of schizophrenia’s symptoms, but also help patients to interact better with their families, colleagues and friends and therefore increase the quality of life of this at risk population.