Past Issues

Background:Rehabilitation treatments for patients with schizophrenia mainly focus on promoting the amenability of drug treatment, the capacity for self-care, and the ability to fi nd and to maintain employment. They are less focused on spontaneity and pleasure capacity, which can lead to enhanced creativity and problemsolving ability. This study was intended to apply play therapy group to the patients in a psychiatric day hospital, to investigate its infl uence on patients with schizophrenia. Methods:We studied 66 patients, 31 of which were in the experimentalcondition and 35 of which were in the control condition. They had a mean age of 39.08 years. Attending a low-structured play therapy group was the independent variable. Dependent variables, including patients’ self-report on life adjustment, a professional assessment on psychiatric symptoms, and the analysis on patients’group play behaviors, were used to understand how the therapy group infl uenced patients with schizophrenia. Results:After attending the play therapy group, the patients were found not to have signifi cant difference in life adjustment, positive symptoms, and 4 out of 6 of the negative symptoms in the two conditions. However, compared to the control condition, patients in the experimental condition performed better in negative symptoms “lack of action” and “lack of connection with others.” Also, analysis of patients’ group behaviors showed that patients displayed no signifi cant differences on four levels of cognitive play, or the social solitary and parallel play among three stages, but increased their social group play behaviors in the third stage. Conclusion: This study helped understand how to apply low-structured play therapy group in a psychiatric day hospital. More issues on group sessions, assessment timing and observations by signifi cant others need to be discussed.