The Evaluation of Therapeutic Efficacy on the Integrated Group Psychotherapy for Patients With Schizophrenia

Although the patients with schizophrenia can be treated with new generation of antipsychotics medication, additional approaches are necessary to improve schizophrenics' cognitive functions, interpersonal relationships as well as social adjustment. When some of patients return to community, they expose to practical pressure that contribute to worsen and relapse of disease. That further damages patient's cognitive functions. Integrated Psychological Therapy(IPT) on treating schizophrenia has dramatic improvement in recent years; it has formed structured treatment gradually on relieving illusion, hallucination as well as negative symptoms. This study aims at conducting 12-week structured IPT group therapy. The intended subjects are patients, met with DSM-Ⅳ-TR diagnosis of schizophrenia, from community, outpatient and inpatient service. The overall treatments are designed to provide 1-2 hours weekly group therapy which focuses on relieving illusions, hallucination, and negative symptoms. Patients' cognitive functions, ability of emotional adjustment and interpersonal relationship would be evaluated in pre-test and post-test to indicate whether the significant difference exists. There is a controlled group, in which patients who still receive treatment as usual (TAU). The study also compares the evaluation results between IPT group and TAU group, hoping to develop the therapeutic framework for Taiwan people with schizophrenia.