What are the main concerns of families about individuals at clinical high risk state?
Poster C54, Wednesday, October%2010, 11:30%20am%20-%201:00%20pm, Essex%20Ballroom
Lihua Xu1, Tianhong Zhang1, Yingying Tang1, Huiru Cui1, Junjie Wang1, Yanyan Wei1, Xiaochen Tang1, Yikang Zhu1, Lijuan Jiang1, Zhenying Qian1, Jijun Wang1; 1Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders
Family factors, such as family environment and family communication, may contribute to symptoms and functioning among CHR individuals, and family-focused interventions appear to be effective for improving outcomes in this population. However, previous studies seldom mentioned the main concerns of the families. Our SHARP team established a ‘WeChat’ group for family members of CHR individuals at the end of March in 2015, aiming to provide mutual support among close relatives of individuals with sub-threshold positive symptoms and functional decline. Until to 27 June 2016, 171 family members of 108 CHR individuals joined the group. From 1 April 2015 to that day, 22,007 valid messages were sent through ‘WeChat’, which have been exported and saved to analyze the main concerns of the families. Family members frequently talked about functional recovery and medication with the group. Generally, after CHR individuals` first visit, family members would go through three stages at which we can implement family-based intervention. At the first stage, family members lack knowledge of psychosis and CHR states and related medication. For example, they may deny the existence of symptoms or say the CHR individuals probably pretend to get sick in order to achieve their purposes. At the second stage, they fear for CHR individuals` futures and repeatedly asked “can they go to school?”, “can they live a normal life?”, and “can they marry and have kids?”. At the third stage, family members would express complaints about CHR individuals` laziness, careless, and irritability. In a word, providing family-focused intervention they need, such as real-time professional explanations and targeted psychological therapy, would be more helpful.
Topic Area: Psychosocial Interventions