Investigating the long-term effects of a psychiatric rehabilitation programme for persons with serious mental illness in the community: a follow-up study

Is a Holistic Health Practice Program Effective to Promote Personal Growth in Persons with Serious Mental Illness – A Pilot Study

Background:

Self-help groups (SHG) have been found to be effective in enhancing psychiatric rehabilitation. A Holistic Health Practice Program (HHPP) was developed in which all recovery components are covered. It has been conducted on a group of student nurses and was found to be effective in promoting holistic health, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. But the question arises if it is also effective when conducted on the members of the SHG comprising persons with serious mental illness.

Aim:

This study aimed to explore the holistic health status of the members of the SHG and investigate whether the HHPP is effective for the personal growth of members of the SHG, including persons with serious mental illness and trained lay persons as volunteers in the group.

Methods:

A pre- and post-test group approach was adopted in this study. Group members were invited to join an HHPP, which consisted of 6 sessions held within 6 weeks, with one session weekly comprising 3 hours per session. Participants were asked to fill in a pre-test questionnaire before the program and a post-test questionnaire when they completed the program.

Results:

Results showed that among the 6 domains of the healthy lifestyle profile, participants scored the lowest in the physical activity of the physical domain, followed by the health responsibility of the psychological domain. Whereas, they scored the highest in the interpersonal relations of the social domain. The study also found no significant differences between the mean scores of the persons with serious mental illness and the volunteers. Besides, there were significantly positive increases in mean scores in the domains of physical activity, nutritional habits, spiritual growth, and the total scores of HPLP-II (P<0.05), as well as self-esteem (P<0.05) and self-efficacy (P<0.05) when comparing the pre-test and post-test results.

Conclusion:

This study showed that the holistic health status of persons with serious mental illness is the same as that of the general population. It also demonstrated that the Holistic Health Practice Program is effective in promoting holistic health, self-esteem, and self-efficacy among the persons with serious mental illness and the volunteers.

An Integrative Review of Recovery Services to Improve the Lives of Adults Living with Severe Mental Illness

There is an increasing call for recovery-oriented services but few reviews have been undertaken regarding such interventions. This review aims to synthesize evidence on recovery services to improve the lives of adults living with severe mental illness. An integrative review methodology was used. We searched published literature from seven databases: Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus. Mixed-methods synthesis was used to analyse the data. Out of 40 included papers, 62.5% (25/40) used quantitative data, 32.5% used qualitative and 5% (2/40) used mixed methods. The participants in the included papers were mostly adults with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. This review identified three recovery-oriented services—integrated recovery services, individual placement services and recovery narrative photovoice and art making. The recovery-oriented services are effective in areas such as medication and treatment adherence, improving functionality, symptoms reduction, physical health and social behaviour, self-efficacy, economic empowerment, social inclusion and household integration. We conclude that mental health professionals are encouraged to implement the identified recovery services to improve the recovery goals of consumers.

Recovery services and expectation of consumers and mental health professionals in community-based residential facilities of Ghana

BACKGROUND

In the past decades, considerable global attention has been drawn to recovery services that seek to promote the personal recovery journey of consumers with mental illness. However, in most settings, including Ghana, limited empirical studies have attempted to explore, from the perspectives of Mental Health Professionals (MHPs) and consumers, the effectiveness of recovery services and expectation towards the recovery. This study, therefore, explored consumers' and MHPs perspectives concerning recovery services and expectations towards recovery in two community-based residential facilities in Ghana.

METHODS

A qualitative method, involving in-depth interviews and observations, were used to collect data from 24 participants (5 MHPs and 19 consumers). Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

RESULTS

The study identified three global themes and nine organizing themes. The global themes were recovery services offered to consumers, expectation regarding personal recovery and challenges in achieving recovery. The study found that recovery services were expected to improve the internal and external recovery processes of consumers. The internal recovery process was independent living whilst the external recovery process were management of illness, economic empowerment and social inclusion. Several systemic and consumer-related factors influenced consumers' and MHPs expectation concerning the recovery journey.

CONCLUSION

The study concludes that the government should prioritize the use of recovery services through policies, financial incentives, infrastructure support, and adequate training of MHPs.