Implementation and evaluation of a psychiatric rehabilitation programme in a correctional service unit, Eastern Cape Province.

Abstract

A study of implementing and evaluating a psychiatric rehabilitation programme in a correctional service department unit was undertaken at the Medium A Prison •i n East London . The objectives of the study were to develop and implement a psychiatric rehabilitation programme. To increase the knowledge of the mentally ill persons about mental illness, to develop skills that will help them to cope with the psychiatric symptoms and lastly to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme by assessing the knowledge of the part'i.c ipants about mental illness, their level of psychiatric symptoms and the presence of relapse rate. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and the Knowledge About Mental Illness Questionnaire (KAMI) were administered prior and after the implementation of the programme. The sample in the study comprised ten psychiatric patients selected from the prison population and assigned randomly to either the control group or the experimental group. Psycho-education was done with the experimental group only, while the control group only focused on recreational activities. The KAMI questionnaire results were statistically significant (t = 0, 03 p < 0, 05) . The experimental group therefore performed better than the control group after implementation of the programme. Al though the psychiatric symptoms of the experimental group decreased after the intervention they were not statistically significant. This could be attributed to the fact that the sample was quite small.The findings as well could not be generalized due to the limited sample. This therefore suggests that psycho-education needs to be conducted as an ongoing programme and, to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the study, a more permanent programme needs to be developed for the Correctional Services Department. It was also suggested that the psychiatric rehabilitation programme should be intertwined with the criminal rehabilitation programme.