The psychoeducation program consisted of
6 individual sessions and 4 telephone follow-up
sessions. The education sessions were delivered to
the schizophrenic patients during the last week of
their hospital stay. The content of the program
was developed based on results from a systematic
review by Pekkala & Merinder.18 Specifically, it
was suggested that a psychoeducational program
contain education concerning symptoms of
schizophrenia, treatments, and side effects of
medications, symptom management, and stress
management.
The program consisted of 10 sessions. The
first six individual sessions, which took 30
minutes per session, were administrated daily to
the patients for six days in the psychiatric units. Its
content included the symptoms of schizophrenia,
treatment, side effects of medication, symptom
management, and stress management (Table 2).
For the latter four sessions, the researcher made a
weekly phone call to the patients for four weeks
during the first month after discharge. The
conversation took about 15-20 minutes per
session. The first call was started on the third day
after patient discharge. The follow-up phone
sessions focused on assessing the patient’s
emerging problems after they returned to live in
the community, assisting them to identify possible
problem-solving strategies. Also encouragement,
praise, and advice as well as reminders about the
first appointment after discharge were offered.
Major contents for each group session were
summarized in Table 2.