The Effectiveness of Narrative Group Therapy on Resilience, Functional Disability and Psychological Distress of Chronic Schizophrenia Patients

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 MSc in Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences & Psychology, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran.

2 Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences & Psychology, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran.

3 Technical manager of the treatment and rehabilitation center for chronic patients, Dar al-Shifa, Ardabil, Iran.

10.22098/jrp.2024.15198.1237

Abstract

Patients with chronic schizophrenia experience many negative symptoms such as functional disability and psychological distress, which is aggravated by long-term hospitalizations in residential centers for chronic psychotic patients and challenges the resilience of these people; This study aim was to investigate the effectiveness of narrative group therapy on resilience, functional disability and psychological distress of chronic schizophrenia patients. The current research method was quasi-experimental with pre-test, post-test and follow-up with control and experimental groups; The statistical population of the research included men aged 20 to 60 with chronic schizophrenia in Ardabil city in 2023, who were hospitalized in treatment and rehabilitation centers for chronic psychotic patients, and their number was estimated to be around 250. 30 of these people were randomly placed in two experimental (n=15) and control (n=15) groups using the convenience sampling. Both the control and experimental groups answered the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule, and the Psychological Distress scale before, after, and one month after the intervention, and their data were compared with the use of descriptive statistics and analysis of variance with repeated measurements was analyzed in SPSS22 software platform. The Results showed that resilience, functional disability, and psychological distress (anxiety, stress and depression) have a significant difference from the pre-test stage to the follow-up stage. Therefore, it can be concluded that narrative therapy leads to the improvement of resilience, functional disability and psychological distress of chronic schizophrenia patients.

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