Applying the community mental health nursing model among people with schizophrenia

This study aimed to evaluate the application of community mental health nursing (CMHN) model using an intervention of nursing standard care and cognitive behavioral therapy on life skills and work productivity for the adult population with schizophrenia.

This study was an experimental study with an equivalent control group using randomly allocated 193 participants to either the intervention or control group at community health center in Cipayung, Jakarta. The intervention comprised in a 4-month cognitive behavioral therapy that was implemented by 33 community psychiatric nurse staff to improve the life skills and work productivity of people with schizophrenia. The instruments used to evaluate the intervention were the Indonesian version of the life skill profile (LSP) questionnaire and the work productivity and activity impairment scale (WPAI). The data analysis used a paired t-test.

The findings show that there was a significant difference in scores on the LSP before and after the implementation in the intervention group (19.94±1.27 and 38.83±9.32) with p<.001 and the control group (26.93±12.50 and 30.89±12.41) with p=.002. The findings also show that there was a significant difference of WPAI before and after the implementation for the intervention group (2.21±1.12 and 3.82±1.28) with p<.05 compared with the control group (1.91±1.42 and 2.19±1.58) with p=.188.

CMHN models using basic community mental health nursing interventions can be used to improve life skills and work productivity of people with schizophrenia so this could be a skill to strengthen the ability to live in the community in this type of patients.