The effect of psychosocial skill-oriented group psychoeducation on functional recovery, treatment adherence, and mental well-being in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia: A randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder that negatively affects individuals' social, occupational, and daily functioning. Psychosocial skills-focused group psychoeducation has emerged as an essential complementary intervention method in clinical practice to increase patients' treatment adherence and enhance their mental well-being. This study examines its effects on functional improvement, treatment adherence, and mental well-being in schizophrenia patients.

METHODS

The study is a randomized controlled study with pre-test and post-test. This study was conducted with patients diagnosed with schizophrenia registered at the Community Mental Health Center of a hospital in Türkiye between June and August 2025. Participants were assigned to the experimental group (n1 = 20) and the control group (n2 = 20) by simple randomization from those who completed psychosocial skills-focused group psychoeducation. Data collection tools included the Participant Information Form, Morisky Medication Adherence Rating Scale, Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, and Functional Recovery Scale in Schizophrenia. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data, and the Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests were used for data that did not follow a normal distribution.

RESULTS

In the post-intervention group-internal assessments, the treatment adherence, mental well-being, and functional recovery scores of the schizophrenia-diagnosed participants in the experimental group were found to be statistically significantly higher than those of the control group in the post-test measurements (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The findings indicate that psychosocial skills-focused group psychoeducation was associated with improvements in self-reported treatment compliance (although the low reliability of the adherence measure in this sample warrants cautious interpretation) in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and is an effective intervention for improving mental well-being and functional capacity. To increase the effectiveness of psychosocial skills-focused group psychoeducation and evaluate its sustainability, long-term follow-up studies in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia are recommended.