In the last few years, psychiatric nurse practitioners have shown a growing an interest in community psychosocial rehabiliation, caring for chronic psychiatric patients as case manager in South Korea. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a community psychiatric rehabilitation nursing program on self-care actively and quality of life and to suggest this program as an effective nursing intervention in a group of chronic home-based psychiatric patients in a poor town. A nonequivalent control group, pretest-posttest design was used . Of the twenty women that started the program, sixteen finished it. The data were analyzed by the Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test. The program included the process of case management which consisted of four phases: the first was an active case finding and pre-test, the second was home visiting and contracted by phone, the third was group activity therapy of 12 sessions, and the fourth phase was terminal and post-test. The effects of the program were assessed by quality of life and self-care activity. The quality of life and the self-care activity, especially, area of nutrition, elimination, dressing, leisure activity, and follow-up clinic visiting showed greater improvement than those of the control group. The results of this study suggest that this program was effective in improving the quality of life of chronic home-based psychiatric patients.
An effective rehabilitation program had been developed for psychiatric patients' self management of medication and symptoms in Korea. The rehabilitation program was designed to allow the patients to understand their illness, cope with their medical regimen, and prevent a relapse by recognizing any of the symptoms when they recur.
The developed program utilizes the self efficacy method reported by Bandura, it includes manuals and videotapes focusing on real life situations, small group discussions, and telephone coaching. This study investigated the effects of this program with respect to various predictable variables in psychiatric rehabilitation. Thirty eight patients were selected for this study, 18 in the experimental program and 20 as controls.
The results showed that the subjects who attended this educational program reported significantly more improvement in attitude toward medication compliance (
This program may be a useful psychoeducational resource for professionals in the field of clinical practice in psychiatry.