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Evidence to Improve Care

Schizophrenia

Care for Adults in Hospitals

9

Family Intervention

Adults who are admitted to an inpatient setting with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia are offered family intervention.


Family intervention aims to improve support and resilience and enhance the quality of communication and problem solving with the family, caregivers, and personal supports of a person with schizophrenia. It also seeks to provide insight into the person’s condition and the relevant signs and symptoms to improve family members’ ability to anticipate and help reduce the risk of relapse.

For Patients

Interventions should be offered to your family, caregivers, and personal supports to help them understand schizophrenia and its signs and symptoms. This will allow them to better support you, help you cope, and help to prevent relapse.


For Clinicians

Offer family intervention to people with schizophrenia.


For Health Services

Through adequately resourced systems and services, ensure that health care providers in hospitals can offer family intervention to people with schizophrenia.

Process Indicator

Percentage of adults admitted to hospital with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia who receive family intervention

  • Denominator: total number of adults admitted to an inpatient setting with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia (excludes those without a family and those who do not consent to family involvement)

  • Numerator: number of people in the denominator who:

    • Receive family intervention during the inpatient stay or

    • Have family intervention arranged in their discharge plan

  • Data source: local data collection


Structural Indicator

Availability of in-hospital family intervention programs or referral to community-based family intervention programs for adults with schizophrenia and their family members

  • Data source: local data collection

Family

This term includes members of a person’s family, personal supports, and caregivers who live with or are in close contact with the adult with schizophrenia


Family intervention

This intervention should:

  • Include at least 10 planned sessions (these may be part of the inpatient setting; planning for subsequent sessions should be part of the discharge planning)

  • Be delivered by an appropriately trained practitioner

  • Be sensitive to the cultural and spiritual characteristics of the individual and their family

  • Take account of the whole family’s preference for either single-family intervention or multifamily groupintervention

  • Consider the relationship between the family and the person with schizophrenia

  • Involve communication skills, problem solving, and education

  • Have reasons discussed and documented when a patient chooses not to involve their family

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