[Rehabilitation of patients with schizophrenia]

Follow-up of 17 schizophrenic patients on long- or very long-term treatment (3 to 27 years), sectorial follow-up of a group of 57 schizophrenics since 1984 and 24 new patients since 1988, study on the development of 50 schizophrenics followed in an out-patient treatment centre and who had left this centre since 1987, are reported. The authors present their findings on their patients' socio-professional insertion or re-insertion. Thanks to progress in therapy, the long-term follow-up of schizophrenic out-patients is now possible. Complete hospitalisation can be avoided or its duration generally reduced. Socio-professional insertion or re-insertion depends on a certain number of factors affecting the observance by the patient and the regular following of his treatment. These factors and the evolution of the disorders are often unforeseeable, and render the patient's re-insertion problematical. The quality of the re-insertion also depends on the care possibilities available to the patient: sectorial follow-up, job-aid centre, sheltered workshops, associative apartments, leisure. Whatever the case, professional insertion seems much more limited than social insertion. Professional life can however be envisaged in subordinate work or in a sheltered working environment where the schizophrenic feels safe within a definite, fixed architectural and affective frame of reference.