Conclusions
Previous research work demonstrated the efficacy and usefulness of SST interventions for patients with schiz-ophrenia. Therefore, these kind of SST interventions should be implemented in routine care combined with other elements of comprehensive care and treatment i.e. medication and other psychosocial therapies. Psychiat-ric / Mental health nurses may implement SST as a nursing intervention either independently or as a joint venture with other mental health care professionals. A structured SST intervention has the same key steps as the nursing process (i.e. assessment, planning, imple-mentation and evaluation) so it can be easily integrated to the nursing care process. In designing and imple-menting SST as a nursing intervention with small group of patients, the individual patient’s characteristics, im-pairments and needs should be taken into account. SST should be ideally commenced in hospital in-patient settings and should be continued without interruption in the community. Future nursing interventions would be focused to incorporate a cognitive format. The nursing role as social skills trainer needs to be developed through facilitating short-term workshops.
The existing nursing studies indicate that SST is a viable therapeutic nursing intervention for patients with schizophrenia. However, existing nursing studies were small scale and quasi-experimental; therefore generali-sation of findings from those studies should be done with caution and this warrants further research with a larger sample size and rigorous research method. Alt-hough this nursing review provides a broad overview of relevant information tempered by critical appraisal of relevant SST studies, particularly of existing nursing studies, but this review restricts itself to summarising the findings narratively and exclusion of relevant publi-cations within the non-English language. It had also failed to include mathematical calculation or graphic presentation of findings which could be possible to compile from homogeneous controlled studies. Future systematic reviews should include meta-analyses of nursing studies for more precise and reliable results regarding efficacy of SST as nursing interventions.