Quality of life of patients with schizophrenia treated in foster home care and in outpatient treatment

BACKGROUND The Sveti Ivan Psychiatric Hospital in Zagreb, Croatia, offers foster home care treatment that includes pharmacotherapy, group psychodynamic psychotherapy, family therapy, and work and occupational therapy. The aim of this study is to compare the health-related quality of life of patients with schizophrenia treated in foster home care with that of patients in standard outpatient treatment. METHODS The sample consisted of 44 patients with schizophrenia who, upon discharge from the hospital, were included in foster home care treatment and a comparative group of 50 patients who returned to their families and continued receiving outpatient treatment. All patients completed the Short Form 36 Health Survey Questionnaire on the day they completed hospital treatment, 6 months later, and 1 year after they participated in the study. The research also included data on the number of hospitalizations for both groups of patients. RESULTS Though directly upon discharge from the hospital, patients who entered foster home care treatment assessed their health-related quality of life as poorer than patients who returned to their families, their assessments significantly improved over time. After 6 months of treatment, these patients even achieved better results in several dimensions than did patients in the outpatient program, and they also had fewer hospitalizations. These effects remained the same at the follow-up 1 year after the inclusion in the study. CONCLUSION Notwithstanding the limitations of this study, it can be concluded that treatment in foster home care is associated with an improvement in the quality of life of patients with schizophrenia, but the same was not observed for the patients in standard outpatient treatment. We hope that these findings will contribute to an improved understanding of the influence of psychosocial factors on the functioning of patients and the development of more effective therapeutic methods aimed at improving the patients' quality of life.