A Case Study of the Health Adaptation of Former Schizophrenics in Communicating with the Bugis Makassar Community in the South Sulawesi Province

Objective: This study aims to identify and categorize the cases of health adaptation of former schizophrenic patients in the process of interaction and communication with the community after experiencing a healing phase.

Method: This research uses a qualitative method with the type of case study. The technique of determining informants using non probability sampling is purposive sampling intentionally characterizing former schizophrenics who have interacted and communicated directly with the internal and external environment. Field data collection techniques through primary data, such as participant observation and in-depth interviews with former schizophrenics. The informants selected and analyzed were nine cases of former sufferers who, on average, were aged 34 to 60 years.

Results. This study found a categorization of health adaptation cases of former schizophrenics who had been cured medically and had initial interactions with the internal and external environment. Based on the analysis of health adaptation cases, four phases are categorized, namely: the healing phase, the interaction phase, the acceptance phase, and the openness phase. After going through these four phases, it was found a pattern of health adaptation of former schizophrenic patients in interacting and communicating with the Bugis-Makassar community. First, the manifest pattern is the ability of former schizophrenics to deal with and overcome internal and external environmental problems. The manifest pattern is characterized by positive self concepts and self disclosure is increasingly open. Second, latent patterns indicate the inability of former schizophrenics to overcome problems in the external environment. This gives rise to negative self concepts and closed self disclosure to communicate with the Bugis-Makassar community.

Conclusions. Based on an analysis of nine cases of health adaptation of former schizophrenic patients in communicating with the Bugis-Makassar community, it was more dominant in the latent pattern than the manifest pattern. This is due to the higher openness in the internal environment compared to the external environment due to the shame of ‘siri’ in themselves and the nuclear family. As a result, fear arises when their families who are former schizophrenics suffer from lack or are not accepted in the Bugis-Makassar community.