Efficacy of Social Skills Training for the Persons with Chronic Schizophrenia

Authors

Binod Kumar, Institute of Mental HealthFollow
Amool Ranjan Singh, Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry & Allied Sciences

Abstract

There are various quantitative studies have been conducted both nationally as well as internationally that revealed the effectiveness of social skills training in schizophrenia. However, very few qualitative studies have been conducted to measure the relevance of social skills training in schizophrenia. The present study investigated the effectiveness of six months social skills training program with 5 inpatients chronic schizophrenia, conducted for one and half an hour in a week. Employing phenomenological approach, psychosocial assessment was done on the basis of interviews, observations, role-plays, and work assignments, which was analyzed using Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen Method of phenomenology. The social skills training resulted in decreasing social anxiety and enhancing social functioning as maintaining personal hygiene, significant gain in adherence to medications, making request, expressing feeling, and sorting out problematic issues that sustained up to 18 months following intervention. It has been effective in changing the patient’s behaviors and boosted their capacity to confront problematic situations, but weaker effects were found for auditory hallucination in one of the patients.

Keywords

Schizophrenia, Social Skills Training, Social Functioning, Role Play, Qualitative Research

Author Bio(s)

Binod Kumar, M. Phil. in Psychiatric Social Work, Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry & Allied Sciences (RINPAS), Kanke, Ranchi, Jharkhnad, India. He had also held a Post Graduate Diploma in Family Dispute Resolution, International Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ICADR) affiliated to NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, India. He is currently working as a Psychiatric Social Worker, Institute of Mental Health (Govt. Mental Hospital), Amritsar, Punjab, India. His research interests include family therapy and couple therapy, social skills training to chronic schizophrenia, hypnosis & relapse prevention among drug addicts including alcohol dependence syndrome. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: Binod Kumar at, His E-mail: kumarbinod83.rinpas@gmail.com or +919569442957.

Amool Ranjan Singh, Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology, Director, RINPAS & Professor of Clinical Psychology, Department of Clinical Psychology, Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry & Allied Sciences (RINPAS), Kanke, Ranchi, Jharkhnad, India. His research interest include Cognitive behavior therapy, clinical psychopathology, family therapy, hypnosis & relapse prevention therapy among drug addicted persons and published various researches in both national and international journals.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Manisha Kiran, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Psychiatric Social Work, RINPAS, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India, for her guidance, support and encouragement. We would also like to thank the patients, nurses and staffs of the Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry and Allied Sciences (RINPAS), Ranchi, Jharkhand, India, who co-operated during social skills training program. There is no potential conflict of interest with to the research and authorship. We did not receive any financial support for the research and authorship.

Publication Date

5-25-2015

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2143

Recommended APA Citation

Kumar, B., & Singh, A. R. (2015). Efficacy of Social Skills Training for the Persons with Chronic Schizophrenia. The Qualitative Report, 20(5), 660-696. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2143