RESEARCH ARTICLE
Patient Opinions on the Helpfulness of External Rehabilitative Activities in Residential Psychiatric Care: A Pilot Study
Bruno Biancosino1, *, Luciana Marmai1, Federica Marchesini1, Raffaella Bertasi1, Gino Targa2, Raffaella Bivi2, Alessandro Cucchi3, Luigi Grassi1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 6
First Page: 16
Last Page: 19
Publisher ID: CPEMH-6-16
DOI: 10.2174/1745017901006010016
Article History:
Received Date: 4/11/2009Revision Received Date: 13/3/2010
Acceptance Date: 14/3/2010
Electronic publication date: 9/4/2010
Collection year: 2010
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Introduction:
This study explores the patient opinions about the helpfulness of the External Rehabilitative Activities (ERA) delivered in two residential facilities for psychiatric rehabilitation.
Methods:
We administered a Questionnaire developed to assess general helpfulness, helpfulness of specific therapeutic processes and satisfaction with the ERA to a sample of 46 psychiatric patients participating in at least three external activities.
Results:
The External Rehabilitative Activities, tested by the ERA-Questionnaire, were considered helpful or very helpful by most of the patients. The therapeutic process with the highest score was “relaxation”, followed by “general helpfulness”, “socialization”, “knowledge of social context”, “community integration”. The least-valued process was “autonomy”.
Conclusion:
This pilot study has shown that psychiatric patients consider ERA helpful and rate more helpful the specific therapeutic processes, such as relaxation and socialization, that assure symptomatic relief and interaction with the outside world.
