THE INTEGRAL MANAGEMENT OF THE SCHIZOPHRE NIC PATIENT - A MODEL OF THE MEXICAN-INSTITUTE-OF-PSYCHIATRY

The present paper describes a treatment program developed for schizoph renic patients. The program intended to preserve the stability of clin ical symptoms and to improve patient psychosocial and every day functi oning. The treatment program lasted 14 months. An experimental (N = 21 ) and a control group (N = 17) were compared. The control group receiv ed psychiatric consultation which included medication. The experimenta l group also received psychiatric help and medication, and attended a multiple therapy program. The program included individual and group ps ychotherapy, family-group therapy, psychosocial and activity therapies : (recreational therapy, expressive movement therapy, music therapy an d drawing lessons). Patients attended the program three times per week for three hours. The present paper reports the general results of the project. Therapeutic interventions will be reported later separately. Patients were evaluated with the CIDI (Robins, 1988), the PANSS (Andr easen, 1984), the DiMascio scale (Chovinard, 1980) and with a Daily Fu nctioning Schedule developed at the Mexican Institute of Psychiatry. P atients in the experimental group show improvement is psychosocial fun ctioning: in the specific areas of the Daily Functioning Schedule, pat ients in this same group improved in more areas as compared to the con trol group more specifically in the interpersonal and social relations hips. Results show the patients in the experimental groups showed grea ter improvement in interpersonal relationships and in psychiatric symp toms. The results of each individual therapeutic intervention will be reported in other papers to be published.