RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Effects of “VelaMente?!” Project on Social Functioning of People With Severe Psychosocial Disabilities
Federica Sancassiani1, *, Stefano Lorrai1, Giulia Cossu1, Alessio Cocco1, Giuseppina Trincas2, Francesca Floris1, Gisa Mellino1, Sergio Machado3, 4, Antonio Egidio Nardi3, Elisabetta Pascolo Fabrici, Antonio Preti1, 2, Mauro Giovanni Carta1, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 13
First Page: 220
Last Page: 232
Publisher ID: CPEMH-13-220
DOI: 10.2174/1745017901713010220
Article History:
Received Date: 30/06/2017Revision Received Date: 19/10/2017
Acceptance Date: 26/10/2017
Electronic publication date: 24/11/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
Physical activity helps to improve several clinical outcomes of people with severe psychosocial disabilities. The aims of this study were; 1) to assess the efficacy of a psychosocial rehabilitative intervention focused on sailing in a crew on: a) social functioning; b) severity of the psychosocial disability; c) general functioning; d) dysregulation of biorhythms of people with severe psychosocial disabilities, and 2) to evaluate the attenders’ satisfaction about the project.
Methods:
A randomized waitlist controlled trial with parallel groups was carried out involving 51 people with severe psychosocial disabilities. The intervention was a 3 months-lasting course to learn sailing in a crew. Just after the randomization, a group began the sailing course and the other group (wait list) attended the sailing course after 3 months of treatments as usual. Before and after the sailing course, as well as the waiting list period, all attenders were assessed by HoNOS, GAF, CGI-S and BRIAN. At the end of the sailing course, they completed also a self-report satisfaction questionnaire.
Results:
Social functioning significantly improved after the sailing course (HoNOS total score “time X group”: p=0.011), mainly because of the improvement of psychopathological symptoms (HoNOS symptoms score “time X group”: p=0.003). Furthermore, participants greatly appreciated the rehabilitative program based on sailing in a crew.
Conclusions:
When compared to more traditional rehabilitative activities that are usually carried out in mental health services, a psychosocial rehabilitative intervention based on sailing in a crew significantly improve the social functioning of people with severe psychosocial disabilities.
