BEHAVIORAL-TRAINING PROGRAM FOR CHRONIC-SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS - A 3-MONTH RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL IN BEIJING

This paper discusses the effectiveness of an in-patient rehabilitation programme administered by nurses that combines life skills training, active encouragement, and a token economy. Fifty-two chronic schizophr enic patients with prominent negative symptoms who had been continuous ly in hospital for at least a year were randomly assigned to the exper imental or control group. The training and associated reinforcement sc hedule were administered daily to experimental subjects by two special ly trained rehabilitation nurses. Control subjects did not receive tra ining or reinforcement but were individually asked to perform the same daily tasks and participate in the same activities as the experimenta l-group subjects. Patients in both groups received their previous dosa ge of medication throughout the trial. After three months the severity of negative symptoms, as assessed by blind evaluators, decreased in b oth groups of subjects, but the improvement in the experimental group was much greater than that in the control group. These findings demons trate the efficacy of behavioural interventions for chronic schizophre nic in-patients in China and highlight the importance of changing the role of Chinese psychiatric nurses from that of custodians who control patients' behaviour to that of therapists who provide psychological a nd behavioural treatment.