Past Issues

Font:SmallMiddleLarge
Share:
Needs and Quality of Life of the Patients with Schizophrenia Living in Halfway Houses

Chia-Jung Hsieh, Chueh Chang, Shing-Chia Chen, Ya-Wen Shih

Objective:Psychiatric patients have a various care needs. The objective of this study was to study the specific and overall needs of outpatients with schizo-phrenia. Methods:With the method of the probability proportional to size sam-pling, we recruited adult patients who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in the community halfway houses (N= 136). After adjusting for factors of their de-mographic characteristics and severity of symptoms, we divided those outpatients into high- and low-functioning subgroups to assess the correlation between reha-bilitation needs and the quality of life (QoL). Results:The high global assessment of function (GAF) group of outpatients was scored significantly higher both on met needs (t= 3.03; p< 0.001) and satisfaction with help (t= 1.97; p< 0.05). In the low-GAF group, their total needs and met needs were significantly negatively correlated with subjective QoL (r= -0.23, p< 0.05; r= -0.35, p< 0.05), respec-tively. Conclusion:Understanding varied needs between subgroups of schizo-phrenia with different functional levels can contribute to identifying unmet needs and developing strategy for improving QoL in the community.
Key Word schizophrenia, psychiatric rehabilitation, needs assessment, quality of life
Editorial Committe, Taiwanese Journal of Psychiatry
9F-3, 22, Song-Jiang Rd., Taipei 104, Taiwan
Email/sop2@ms19.hinet.net │ TEL/886-2-2567-8295 │ FAX/886-2-2567-8218