Positive impact of InteGRO, a new salutogenic psychoeducational intervention, in managing covid-19 pandemic and lockdown aftermath.

Aim: The covid-19 pandemic/lockdown had a great impact on Severe Mental Illnesses (SMI) on the following variables: adherence to protective measures, infection, Covid-related psychopathology, stress related symptoms exacerbation, social relationship loss and higher mortality risk. InteGRO, a new effective salutogenic-psychoeducational approach, has been designed to help people with SMI manage their life-stress and achieve personal recovery goals through improved social functioning. Positive outcomes after pandemic/lockdown in patients trained with InteGRO and also their opinion about its usefulness are discussed.

Methods: All above mentioned variables were collected in a 1-year observational study (March 2020-2021) for all patients trained with InteGRO. In April 2021 patients were asked to respond to: an ad hoc semi-structured in-depth telephone interview, the Stress-Scale, the Brief Psychiatric Rating-Scale, the Personal and Social Performance Scale.

Results: 37 people out of 41 underwent the observational study. The overall outcome was good: one patient with asymptomatic infection, 40/41 vaccinated, a very low (2/37) trend of hospital admissions similar to previous years, very high personal and social functioning as well as low level of stress. In the interview, patients answered they found the InteGRO Training very useful, above all the meetings concerning Defining Goal and Problem-Solving. They often felt their desire to socialize was prompted by InteGRO training.

Conclusions: These results suggest InteGRO had a good impact on SMI patients to face pandemic/lockdown, with high level of personal and social functioning. They also suggest using structured salutogenic psychoeducational programs in public health services can be useful to promote life-skills to face traumatic events. Further studies are needed to understand the duration of these improvements and outcomes.