Explanatory model of illness of the patients with schizophrenia and the role of educational intervention

This randomized controlled trial was conducted at Department of Psychiatry, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar from February to August 2015 to explore beliefs and concepts of patients with schizophrenia about their illness and to find out the effectiveness of structured educational intervention in changing the explanatory models of illness of the patients and in their symptoms reduction. One hundred and three patients were recruited in the trial who were randomly assigned to two groups i.e., Experimental (n = 53) and Control i.e., Treatment As Usual, TAU (n = 50). Intervention was applied to experimental group only, once a month for three months. Short Explanatory Model Interview (SEMI), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) and Compliance Rating Scale were applied on all patients at baseline and at 3 months follow up. Scores on PANSS (Total), BPRS and GAF showed improvement in the experimental group as compared to TAU group, at follow up, with the p values of 0.000, 0.002 and 0.000, respectively. On follow up, 44 (95.6%) patients of experimental group achieved complete compliance as compared to 17 (47.2%) patients of TAU group [p = 0.000]. On baseline analysis of SEMI, in the experimental group, only 3.8% (n = 2) knew about name of the illness, which increased to 54.3% (n = 25) on follow up, while in TAU group it improved to 5.6% (n = 2) as compared to 0% at baseline (p = 0.000). The result suggest that Structured educational intervention can be effective in modifying the beliefs of the patients regarding their illness.