An assessment of the psychoeducational needs of long-term psychiatric patients

Objectives: We aimed to identify which illness related topics were of most interest to chronic psychiatric patients in our catchment area service, and to obtain a baseline measure of the amount of knowledge which patients wit h schizophrenia had about their illness. Method: Patients attending for a minimum of one year were recruited from th e outpatient clinic and day centre. Participants completed three instrument s: a brief questionnaire which asked about the details of their diagnosis a nd drug treatment regimen, the 'Educational Needs Questionnaire' (ENQ), and a modified form of the 'Understanding Schizophrenia Scale' (USS). Results: Forty-seven patients with a chronic psychotic illness participated in the study. Despite having attended the service for an average of 14 yea rs, the majority of patients were unable to correctly identify their diagno sis. Most patients were able to name the drugs which they had been prescrib ed, but were not able to describe the dosage of these drugs. According to t he ENQ results, patients expressed most interest in learning about general aspects of their illness, such as 'how to cope with stress', and less in ho w to manage specific illness related symptoms. Similarly, schizophrenia pat ients were found to know more about general aspects of their illness, such as rehabilitation and non-medical aspects of treatment, than about medicati on. Conclusion: Chronic psychiatric patients, especially those with schizophren ia, have very limited knowledge of their illness and its treatment. The foc us of psychoeducation should be extended from insight and compliance to inc lude broader 'quality of life' issues which appear to be of more concern to patients themselves. Patient participation in psychoeducation can thus be improved by including topics identified by such instruments as the ENQ. It is encouraging that cognitive deficits and negative symptomatology do not s eem to prevent long-term psychiatric patients from benefiting from such inp uts.