Brain Disorders & Therapy

Abstract

The Effect of Multi-Disciplinary Psycho-Education for Hospitalized Schizophrenia Patients: The Key Factors for Re-Hospitalization

Toshiaki Tsuneoka, Koji Hori, Atsuko Inamoto, Satoru Sugisawa, Tomohiro Ikeda and Akira Iwanami

Object: We discovered the relationship between any experience and discharge, readmitted. Psycho-education effect schizophrenia patients to discharge. Cognitive function is most important factor about re-admission.

Backgrounds: Today, in Japanese psychiatric hospital, more and more patients are taking an early discharge. This trend has caused a major concern in the psychiatric hospitals because more number patients are being re-hospitalized within a few months after their first discharge.

Methods: We have conducted an experiment in which we offered multi-disciplinary psycho-education to 160 schizophrenia patients. The experiment was conducted in the time span of nearly three years (Dec. 2009-Jul. 2013), with all the patients’ agreement. The patients showed significant improvement in all of the following when compared with prior to the psycho-education: GAF, SAI-J, DAI-10, and objective SCORS-J. Comparing the 137 patients who were able to discharge with 23 patients who were not. And we comparing the 22 patients who re-admitted within one year and the 77 who were not.

Results: Comparing discharge or not, there was no significant difference in the amount of CP. However, there was a great improvement in PANSS, BPRS, GAF, SAI-J, and both objective and subjective SCORS-J. Comparing re-admitted or not, PANSS, BPRS and most of other indicators showed any noticeable difference, objective SCORS-J showed a trend that non-readmitted patients had higher scores.

Conclusions: This research suggests the potential of psycho-education’s function for schizophrenia patients as a preventive measure of re-hospitalization, and the significance of cognitive function as a critical factor.