Relaxation and Impact on the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control: Interest of group psychoeducation for stress management in the context of liaison psychiatry within a General Hospital.

BACKGROUND In this article we propose a model for caring for a group focusing on psychoeducation for stress management and learning relaxation designed for patients experiencing somatization and who were recruited during organic medicine consultations. We are developing an interest for this kind of group from a clinical and practical point of view and have sought to demonstrate the impact that this kind of care can have on health representations among these patients through using the MHLC (Multidimensional Health Locus of Control) questionnaire. SUBJECT AND METHODS Participants in the stress management and relaxation groups completed the questionnaire at the beginning of the first session and at the end of the second and last session. We collected 94 usable questionnaires between January 2008 and December 2014 and processed the data using Student's t-test on paired samples. RESULTS The results tend to demonstrate that psychoeducation for stress management and relaxation reduces internality scores in patients with high scores and the opposite for patients whose internality scores are low. DISCUSSION Our research protocol does not enable us to distinguish between the respective influences of the psychoeducation group and the relaxation group. CONCLUSION The psychoeducation groups for stress management and relaxation have an impact on health representations in patients experiencing somatization who would not have spontaneously sought out psychiatric consultations.