ACT-Based Psychoeducation for Schizophrenia Caregivers

Schizophrenia is an important mental health problem that requires caregivers because it causes disability. With the efforts to move from a hospital-based model to a community-based model in mental health services, the care of schizophrenia patients is mainly provided by their families at home, creating a significant care burden on caregivers or, on the contrary, post-traumatic development is reported. Psychiatric nurses are responsible for evaluating the patient together with their family by taking these conditions into consideration when providing care to individuals with mental illness. As a principle of humanistic and holistic care, nursing interventions to be implemented by psychiatric nurses to develop caregivers' coping methods, reduce their care burden and contribute to their post-traumatic development are extremely important in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency of care. Acceptance and Commitment (ACT)-based psychoeducation, whose effectiveness has been reported in the literature, is an important application in providing care to patients and families in psychiatric nursing practices. ACT is among the third generation therapies that aim to keep individuals in the moment with awareness, adopt the willingness to accept events instead of struggling with them, and create an important source of power in taking actions in line with life values. In this study, 17 out of 34 individuals determined by statistical methods among the caregivers of schizophrenia patients will be included in the control group and monitored, while 17 will receive 8 sessions of ACT-based psychoeducation in the intervention group, and the effects of the education on caregiver burden, post-traumatic development, and psychological resilience will be evaluated. There are very few studies in the literature where ACT-based psychoeducation is applied to caregivers of schizophrenia patients. Although studies examining the effects on individuals' caregiver burden and psychological resilience are limited, no study has been found examining its effects on post-traumatic development, and this constitutes the original value of the study. As a result of this study, it is expected that ACT-based education will reduce the caregiver burden in schizophrenia caregivers and increase their psychological resilience through post-traumatic development.

Schizophrenia is a significant mental health problem in terms of its prevalence and disability. Individuals who experience significant loss of professional/social functioning and inability to perform self-care activities need a caregiver. Many physical, psychological, and economic problems and a related high care burden have been reported in caregivers. These difficulties increase the entry of caregivers into the health system along with sick individuals, contributing to the increase in health costs and mental problems. Studies have shown that interventions to be applied to caregivers will reduce the care burden and increase the coping capacities of individuals. While a relative being diagnosed with schizophrenia can cause trauma in individuals in itself, on the contrary, they can also experience post-traumatic development, and their high post-traumatic development is effective in reducing the care burden experienced by caregivers. Another important factor in caregivers' struggle with the mentioned difficulties is psychological resilience. Interventions to strengthen psychological resilience are gaining importance in this context. Considering the contemporary roles of psychiatric nursing, it is inevitable for the family to be treated holistically, to reduce the burden of care, and to provide therapeutic interventions that will strengthen the caregiver spiritually. When the literature is examined, it is seen that Acceptance and Commitment (ACT) based interventions are highly effective for individuals providing care to schizophrenia patients, but it is noteworthy that there are not enough studies. In particular, no study has been found examining the effect of ACT based psychoeducation on the post-traumatic development levels of caregivers. This study was planned to reveal the effect of Acceptance and Commitment based psychoeducation applied to individuals providing care to schizophrenia patients on the burden of care, post-traumatic development, and psychological resilience of individuals in order to contribute to its inclusion in psychiatric nursing practices.