Effectiveness of Occupational Therapy on Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a group of psychotic disorders that interfere with thinking and mental or emotional responsiveness that last longer than 6months. It affects about 24 million persons worldwide. Due to this, a study was undertaken in selected hospitals of Mangalore with an objective to assess the effectiveness of occupational therapy on symptoms of schizophrenia. Using purposive sampling technique 30 subjects were undertaken for the study. Scale for assessment of negative symptoms (SANS) was used to assess the symptoms of schizophrenia in schizophrenic clients. Statistical analysis revealed that more than half of subjects (53.4%) were within the age group of 21-40years.Both males and females constitute 5o%. About 46.6% of the subjects were married and with lower socio economic status.43.4% were Hindus.36,8% of the subjects completed primary school education. About 40% of the subjects resides in urban area. Majority of the subjects 60% were diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Nearly half of the subjects 63.3% were not on regular medication. Highest percentage of subjects 70%were hospitalized before. Finding reveals that occupational therapy was not effective for negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The calculated t valve (0.942) was lower than the table value (2.05) at 0.05 level of significance