Data analysis This study employed SPSS Windows 180 to analyse the collected data. A t-test or v2 test was conducted to analyse differences in the demographics and outcome indicator variables between the two groups of participants prior to the intervention. Subsequently, a paired t-test was adopted to compare the assessment data obtained from the same group before and after the intervention and at the 3-month and 6month follow-ups. Finally, a generalized estimating equation (GEE) with an exchangeable correlation structure was used to analyse the effects of group and time and the group by time interaction. Age, gender, number of hospitalizations, duration of disease, years of education and CPZ equivalents at baseline were controlled. Effect size calculations were based on the mean pre–post change in the experimental group minus the mean pre–post change in the control group, divided by the pooled baseline standard deviation (Morris 2007). An effect size of 02 was considered small, 05 moderate and 08 large (Sullivan & Feinn 2012).