Methods: The present study was a longitudinal study that employed convenience sampling to collect data, with data collection performed twice, 6 months apart. The participants, who were patients with chronic schizophrenia, were recruited from the psychiatric wards, day-care ward, and outpatient department of a regional teaching hospital in Northern Taiwan after the approval of the hospital’s institutional review board was acquired. In total, 216 valid questionnaire responses were retrieved, covering the period from November 2016 to November 2017. The questionnaire consisted of demographic data, the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the Health, Personality, and Habit Scale (HPH), the Drug Attitude Inventory (DAI), the Liverpool University Neuroleptic Side Effect Rating Scale (LUNSERS), the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF), and the Heart Rate Variability (HRV). SPSS 18 for Windows was employed, with descriptive statistics, independent-sample t-tests, paired t-tests, Pearson product-moment correlation, and multiple hierarchical regression were performed.
Results:
- The results indicated that the patients with schizophrenia had more positive drug attitudes, reduced side effects, and improved quality of life after 6 months.
- PANSS ≤ 60 points at baseline, the drug attitude exhibited a partial mediating effect on the relationships between side effects and the psychological and the environmental domains of quality of life in patients with schizophrenia. PANSS score between 61 to 90 and ≥ 91 points, the drug attitude had no mediating effect on the relationships between side effects and quality of life in patients with schizophrenia at both periods.
Conclusion:
- After 6 months, the drug attitudes, side effects, and quality of life have been changed in patients with chronic schizophrenia.
- Drug attitudes lessens the impact of side effects on the psychological and the environmental domains of quality of life in patients with chronic schizophrenia.
- Suggest that nursing care should be provided to improve drug attitude, side effects, and then to increase quality of life in patients with chronic schizophrenia
- For patients with stable symptom (PANSS ≤ 60), suggest that nursing care improve patients’ drug attitudes to lessen the impact of side effects on the psychological and the environmental domains of quality of life.