Related Experiment Videos
Abstract:
The article reports on the results of vocational rehabilitation efforts in 399 schizophrenic patients. The criterion for assessing the rehabilitation outcome was a regular job for at least three months after discharge from the hospital - which was achieved in 51% of the schizophrenics as compared to 63% of the control group. In the majority of cases good rehabilitation results could be achieved only by placement in a job which, compared with the previous position, required less skills. In analysing the rehabilitation success in its relation to different variables it was noted that the diagnostic assignment to paranoid types of schizophrenia was positive whereas the opposite was found in the cases of hebephrenic courses and defective conditions. As a rule, better success could be achieved with older patients, which is attributed to vocational stabilisation before the onset of the disease. More effective than the correlation with diagnostic and psychopathological data was the examination of the relationship between success and the variables 1) social background and 2) attitudes. Very negative factors turned out to be social origin and milieu conditions, economic and family situations, the states of unemployment at the time before admission and an insufficient adjustment to the training programme. No correlation could be found between success and a longer history of employment. Social isolation could be largely eliminated through the therapeutic family milieu offering identification possibilities. In addition, the study revealed the importance of a continuous psychosocial follow-up care.