THE EFFECT OF HOME VISITS PROGRAM ON LENGTH OF HOME STAY IN FIRST EPISODE SCHIZOPHRENIA

Abstract

Objective: To study the effect of home visits program on the length of home staying period in first episode schizophrenia.   Material and Methods: This was quasi-experimental study with two group conducting pretest – posttest design. The participants are first episode schizophrenic patients at Somdet Chaopraya Institute of Psychiatry during October 2013 to September 2014 and live in Bangkok. They was selected to control group and experimental group. The control group received treatment as usual. The experimental group participated in the 6 sessions of home visits program developed from skill and role development in psychiatric care giving of Tungpunkum P. The effectiveness was evaluated by the Brief Psychotic Rating Scale (BPRS), the Quality of Life Measurement of Psychiatric Patient, the burden of care questionnaires and length of home stay. The descriptive statistic and independent t-test were used to analyze.   Results: The participants consisted of 50 first episode schizophrenic patients. They was selected to be 22 patients in control group and 28 patients in experimental group. Their characteristic are similar, mostly are male between 30-39 years old, single, already held Bachelor’s degree graduated work experience. After home visits program, The patients had 367.43 days of home staying period and the control group had 339.59 days, showing that there is no difference is significantly statistics. The experimental group were stable psychotic symptoms (90.90%) and high quality of life (average = 3.09, SD = 0.18). Their care givers had moderate burden of care (average = 40.18, SD = 11.34).   Conclusion: The home visits in the first episode schizophrenia could improve self-care skills of patients and support the participation of patient’s family, community and health center. It assisted the patients took care of themselves and lived in community with good quality of life so that the caregivers were not feeling burden form care.