Effectiveness of Psycho-Motivational Training on Improving Social Skills and Emotional Regulation in Patients with Schizophrenia

: Background : Schizophrenia is a psychotic condition marked by a lack of understanding of reality and insight, that can be found in symptoms of severe mental disorders such as delusions, hallucinations, chaotic speech, and chaotic behavior, including negative symptoms that cause societal harm. Psycho-educational interventions such as psycho-motivational training are one of the initiatives that can be given to patients with schizophrenia the aim of increasing patient socialization and emotional regulation skills as well as patients are able to adapt to their environment. Aim: To study the effectiveness of psycho-motivational training program in improving social skills and emotional regulation in patients with schizophrenia. Design: A quasi-experimental design (pre/posttest single group type) was used. Sample: A purposive sample of sixty patients with schizophrenia participated in this study. Setting: the study was carried out in El kasr El Ainy Psychiatric and Addiction hospital. Tools for data collection were: Sociodemographic and Medical data sheet, Observable Social Cognition Rating Scale was aimed to investigate the construction of social cognition; Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used to assess the difficulty of recognizing and describing emotions; Brief Negative Symptom Scale was used for measuring social withdrawal, emotional withdrawal or diminished emotional range, avolition, alogia, and anhedonia; and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire was used to measure respondents’ tendency to regulate their emotions. The program consisted of 14 sessions. Results: The study results showed that there were highly statistically significant differences between the observable social cognition, identifying and describing emotions, self-evaluation of negative symptoms, and emotion regulation through before, after, and follow-up implementation of the program. Conclusion: The findings revealed that psycho-motivational training for patients with schizophrenia had a great positive effect on improving social skills, and emotional recognition . As well as the training program was effective in improving negative symptoms among patients with schizophrenia. Recommendation: The study recommended that the essential need for increment empowered psychiatric mental health nurses and other team members with psychoeducation and training programs to help patients acquire social skills and control inappropriate emotions for engaging in adaptive relationships with others in the modern hospitals’ environment.