Role of Mental Health Group in Helping an Individual Role Of Mental Health Group In A Helping Individual Overcome Schizophrenia In Hawaii: A Substantive Grounded Theory

Role of mental health group in helping an individual overcome schizophrenia in Hawaii: a substantive grounded theory

Schizophrenia is a brain disease that is emotionally distressing for patients and their families. In a society that has misunderstood schizophrenia for a long time, its victims have been undeservingly stigmatized. This study compares the development of social skills and coping skills of schizophrenia patients in support groups: can support groups help these patients? The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare schizophrenia patients with social skills issues and the care they receive from support groups with respect to developing these skills. Schizophrenia patients need a lot of support. They attend support groups to discuss housing, job, and family issues. This also gives them an opportunity to practice social skills within the group session. Support group utilized what kind of care in particular can these groups offer to schizophrenia patients? What kind of group session is the most effective in helping these patients?

Many researchers have studied schizophrenia patients, including their problematic behavior and psychological problems. This study combines these topics by asking: If patients, who suffering about schizophrenia have difficulty developing coping skills, how helping group responds who suffering about schizophrenia? And support group's support require is that how can they support to who suffering about schizophrenia people's develop social skills and good coping skills? How can support groups effectively help people who suffering about schizophrenia? Hypothesis of this study is that there is a correlation between support schizophrenic patients and support groups how the ability to communicate.

By "communicate and communication skills," I mean something other than acquisition of smooth conversation and social communication skills -- this study is more concerned with schizophrenia patients' experiences of communicating in his or her support group and workplace, including his or her ability to form friendships and adapt to the requirements of the support group and workplace. How support group help them and for the support group, what kind of activities can give to patients who suffering about schizophrenia. This research study uses interviews given in support groups. Samples were chosen randomly from support group staff.

Introduction

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that is often associated with abnormal social behavior and the failure of an individual to be in touch with reality. False beliefs, confused or unclear thinking, and hallucinations on the part of the schizophrenic characterize it Picchioni & Murray, 2007.

Schizophrenia is described mostly in terms of its positive and negative symptoms. The positive symptoms of schizophrenia are those that a normal individual does not normally experience but a schizophrenic does. They include hallucinations, confused thoughts, speech impairment, and delusions. Positive symptoms are often treated with medication. Negative symptoms, on the other hand, are those that respond less to medication. They are deficits in the person's emotional response and they include lack of emotion, inability to express feelings, lack of motivation, and lack of desire for relationships. Schizophrenics with negative symptoms often adjust poorly to their setting and respond poorly to medication Walker & Tessner, 2008()

Scholars believe that schizophrenia is a genetic illness. This is because they have found the risk of a child becoming schizophrenic is 13% if one parent is schizophrenic and this rises to 50% if both parents are schizophrenic. Evidence from genetic studies suggests that many genes contribute to the hereditary nature of schizophrenia Dyke, 2013()

Statement of the problem

Since some schizophrenia symptoms do not respond well to medication, management and treatment of the disease requires a holistic approach of medical, psychosocial, and psychological treatment Lester, Tritter, & Sorohan, 2005.

The bulk of schizophrenia treatment is done in outpatient centers by multidisciplinary teams to succeed at this holistic approach Nonaka & Hirasawa, 2012(; Shah & Beinecke, 2009)

. This team often includes a counselor, therapist, pharmacologist, nurse, and social worker. Achieving this holistic treatment in an outpatient setting is more difficult since it is not easy to get all members of the multidisciplinary team in one location at the same time Pitt et al., 2013()

Purpose

The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of mental health groups in supporting schizophrenics towards recovery. The research will explore the contribution of these groups to the mental health of the individual and these findings will inform future work to of researchers determine the effectiveness of similar mental health groups or by practitioners to evaluate the best way to care for schizophrenics.

Research question

While this research aims at comparing...

The first research question is whether support groups are more effective than individual outpatient care for schizophrenics. The second question is "what type and standard of care do mental health groups provide to schizophrenics compared to individual outpatient treatment?" The third and last research question is "what is the correlation between support groups and the recovery process of the schizophrenic patient?"
Review of literature

Mental health groups have been known to be effective in treatment of mental health problems. This is majorly because they are mutual-aid groups where each member of the group benefits from the other member and vice versa Ran, Xiang, Simpson, & Chan, 2005.

The group flourishes as a result of sharing their experience and peer reciprocity where the group members do not shy away because they know other members of the group have or are facing similar issues Everett, Mahler, Biblin, Ganguli, & Mauer, 2008()

Mental health groups also allow group members to receive holistic treatment since they are well organized and members of the multidisciplinary team can be scheduled to attend these sessions regularly Bateman & Smith, 2011.

Research suggests that these voluntary mental health groups are associated with more efficient use of the health services provided, increased self-esteem for the schizophrenic patients, improved ability for relationships, better coping skills and decreased isolation Aneshensel, 2009(; Austrian, 2005)

Methodology

The methods chosen for this study are qualitative methods. The study will use semi-structured interviews to gather information about the effectiveness of mental health groups to schizophrenics. Semi-structured interviews have been chosen because they enable the researcher to stay within the topic while deviating from the interview guide slightly in order to get more details on emerging issues Hakim, 2000()

Rationale for method

Qualitative methods are chosen because this study is aimed at reviewing individual cases of schizophrenic patients while allowing the researcher to get into great depths and understanding about each case Yin, 2003.

This is achieved while making sure the researcher stays within the practical and pertinent issues of the research study.

Participants

The participants of this study will be schizophrenic patients attending mental health groups for treatment. The participants of the study will be purposively chosen since they must be schizophrenic patients and must be attending mental health support groups. All participants who will be included in this study will be above the age of 18 with no limit on maximum age. This is so to ensure only those with legal right to provide consent will participate in the study. The snowball sampling method will be used to identify more respondents to participate in the study since it will help to identify participants who are most relevant to the study being conducted.

Research setting

The study will be conducted in a major public hospital in Hawaii. Participants attending mental health self-help or support groups. The hospital will be chosen by purposive and convenience sampling since the aim is for the researcher to find the most suitable hospital to provide as detailed information on the topic as possible.

Data collection

Data for this study will be collected as soft data. During the interviews, the researcher will use a voice recorder to capture the conversation while taking notes of key points raised in the discussion. The data will be soft data because it will be mostly opinions and experiences and these cannot be analyzed statistically Miller & Salkind, 2002.

The study will utilize both primary and secondary data. Primary data will be collected through the interviews while secondary data will be obtained from hospital records and other relevant sources. To triangulate the data, the research will also interview key respondents such as the hospital director of clinical, pharmaceutical, or psychological services, chief nurse, or other key staff in the hospital mental health team.

Data analysis

To determine the pattern and strength of association in the interview transcripts, the research will use inferential statistics. Inferential statistics will inform the findings and discussion of this study. As argued by Peck and Devore (2011)

, when using inferential statistics, it is essential to create assumptions for the research. The assumptions set for this study is that all schizophrenic patients react the same and the response of each individual to a form of treatment does not change.