Effects of psychosocial program for preparing long-term hospitalized patients with schizophrenia for discharge from hospital: randomized controlled trial.

Aim: The aims of the present study were to revise the Community Re-entry Program-Japanese version and to review the effectiveness of the revised Program, named the Discharge Preparation Program.

Methods: This study was a randomized controlled trial. The Discharge Preparation Program (DPP) was the intervention condition (n = 26), and the usual rehabilitation program was the control condition (n = 23). Outcome indicators included factors that make patient discharge difficult (which nurses evaluated), psychiatric symptom, knowledge about the illness or medication, and the number of patients who were discharged within 6 months after the end of a program.

Results: Significant improvements were found in the score of the 'Issues on treatment compliance' factor and the score of the 'Autistic life' factor, which are subscales of the Discharge Difficulty Scale, for the DPP group, on two-way ANOVA ('Issues on treatment compliance': F = 3.818, P < 0.10; 'Autistic life': F = 4.155, P < 0.05) These factors affected discharge outcome. Thus, the program may be capable of promoting discharge of long-term hospitalized psychiatric patients. With regard to the number of patients discharged in 6 months after the end of a program, there was no significant difference between both groups.

Conclusion: The present result is in agreement with past studies, and the DPP is useful in discharge support for patients with schizophrenia in Japan.