Reducing re-admissions at St. Ann’s psychiatric hospital

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: This study addressed the psychoeducational approach to understand mental illness, illness self-management and social skills. It evaluated the effects of a structured-mannualized psychoeducation programme that taught inpatients about their illness and how to maintain remission after discharge and avoid re-admissions. DESIGN AND METHODS: A total of 505 inpatients admitted with mental disorders were randomly assigned to either an experimental group or control group. The psychoeducation programme consisted of six teaching modules distributed in 219 sessions of 45-minute-sessions in each of 5 wards, on a continuous, five-day-a-week schedule. The effects were measured reviewing the records of admissions and re-admissions after discharge. RESULTS: Results indicated that inpatients of the experimental group significantly improved their knowledge and performance of the skills taught in sessions, compared with the control group who did not participate in the educational group sessions. Re-admissions of participants of the experimental group were significantly less than the control group (2.1 percent versus 16.6 percent). CONCLUSIONS: Not only can patients learn relatively complex material during a typical inpatient stay despite the acuteness of their illness, but they can also meaningfully improve the continuity of their own care by participating in brief and highly structured teaching programmes in inpatient and outpatient settings.