the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on improving self-care skills among women with chronic schizophrenia

Introduction: schizophrenia is a chronic, debilitating disease that imposes a great care of burden on families and mental health care providers. therefore, the issue of selfcare is very important in these patients, but few studies have addressed this issue. objective: this study examines the effectiveness of cognitivebehavioral group therapy on improving selfcare skills in women with chronic schizophrenia. method: women with chronic schizophrenia were studied in two groups of intervention (n=9) and control (n=10) at hejazi hospital in mashhad, iran. the intervention group received cognitivebehavioral group therapy and the control group received routine care. the researchermade selfcare questionnaire was completed before intervention and six months after the intervention. findings: the results of the mannwhitney test indicated that there were significant difference between two groups. these difference were especially about variation in the mean of total score of selfcare skills before and after intervention, (z=3/56, p=0/001, cohen’s d= 2/36) as well as before the intervention and six months after the intervention (z=2/01, p=0/04, cohen’s d= 0/21). conclusion: cognitivebehavioral group therapy can affect selfcare skills in women with chronic schizophrenia