Schizophrenia Care: Assessments, Treatments, and Nursing Interventions

This report provides a comprehensive overview of schizophrenia, a mental disorder affecting thinking, feeling, and behavior. It discusses the assessment methods, including bodily examinations, psychiatric evaluations, and tools like SCAN, used to diagnose the condition. The report then details various treatment approaches, such as medication, psychosocial interventions like individual therapy and social skills training, and in severe cases, electroconvulsive therapy. Furthermore, it emphasizes the crucial role of nurses in establishing therapeutic relationships, ensuring patient safety, and providing education and support to both patients and their families. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of compassionate care and respect in managing this challenging psychiatric illness.

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Schizophrenia February 29
2020

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Introduction
Schizophrenia is a mental syndrome that disturbs a person's thinking, feeling, and
behaviour. People suffering from schizophrenia appear like they have lost touch with reality
(Lysaker, 2010). The symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations, delusions, and dysfunctional
thinking. Schizophrenia sometimes runs in families. Schizophrenia can happen due to viruses,
malnutrition before birth, difficulties during birth, and psychosocial issues (Pynn, 2013). This
report will discuss the assessment, treatment and nurse interventions required to support
recovery. This report will later elaborate on how to behave or take care of a patient who is
suffering from schizophrenia.
Assessment
Experts have determined that signs do not appear because of substance abuse or
medications. Assessment of schizophrenia includes bodily examination, tests and screenings, and
psychiatric evaluation (De Hert, Vancampfort, Correll, & C. U., Merc, 2011).
Bodily exam or tests
This identifies the extra problems in the body and brain that could be causing symptoms
of schizophrenia. This exam determines mental health-related problems. These may contain tests
that will help in determining the consumption of alcohol and drugs. The doctor may also test
ones’ imagining by requesting an individual to imagine situations. Doctors may also recommend
an MRI and CT scan.
Psychiatric assessment
Mental health professionals check the mental ability by observing his or her
appearance and by asking about their thoughts on mood swings, hallucinations, substance
dependency and delusions (Kilgus, Maxmen, & Ward, 2015). Doctors also judge if the
person is thinking of potential violence, harming oneself, or rapidly thinking of suicide. This
also includes the debate of past life such as family and personal history. Past life incidents
such as major family fights or trauma related to childhood. Another assessment method is
SCAN. It involves the instruments that measure, evaluates and classifies behaviour and
psychopathology associated with major psychiatric disorders in grown-up life. There is also

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a statistical analysis, the independent-measures test was used to evaluate the effect of gender
on baseline features such as age, length of treatment, and percentage treated with clozapine.
Treatment
Schizophrenia requires lifelong treatment. Even if there are no more serious symptoms
such as hallucinations or delusions after discharge from the hospital it is still required to take
medication (Javitt, 2014). Medication treatment can help manage this mental disorder.
Medication treatment can also include psychosocial therapy if the symptoms are severe. In some
severe cases, hospitalization is also recommended by doctors. The most common medication is
an antipsychotic medication that is commonly prescribed drug (Alexander, Gallagher, &
Mascola, 2011). This drug controls symptoms by distressing the brain dopamine system.
Schizophrenia takes time in showing improvements in symptoms.
Psychosocial interventions
In continuation of medication treatment, it is essential to include psychological and
psychosocial interventions. These interventions include individual therapy, social skills training,
vocational rehabilitation, and family involvement therapy.
Individual therapy
This therapy may help in normalizing the thought patterns of the patient. This therapy
will also help the patient to deal with stress and identify warning signals.
Social skills training
This method focuses on improving communication. It promotes social interaction to
improve the confidence of the patients. This will provide the ability and confidence to the
patients to participate in daily activities and social interaction.
Vocational rehabilitation
This focuses on serving schizophrenia patients to survive in real-life activities such as
finding a job and dealing with job stresses.
Family involvement therapy
Family involvement therapy is a kind of psychological counselling that can help family
members to improve communication with the family member suffering from schizophrenia. This

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involvement of the family can help in resolving the unsolved conflicts. This therapy is usually
provided by a psychologist, clinical social worker, or licensed therapist.
Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy is another way of treating schizophrenia. An adult suffering
from schizophrenia that does not respond to the medication, injections, and counselling system is
treated with electroconvulsive therapy. Electroconvulsive therapy is proved helpful for the
population of patients that were severely ill and were not responding to the medication treatment
(Kristensen, Bauer, Hageman, & Jorgense, 2011).
Nurse interventions
Establishing a therapeutic relationship
Nurses that are taking care of schizophrenia patients are required to deal with patients
with patience, care, and support. First, the nurses need to establish trust with the patients. Nurses
should help and support the patients in learning social skills. For schizophrenia patients, it is
essential to ensure safety (Bridges, Nicholson, Maben, & Pope, 2013).
Establish trust
Maintain a safe environment with minimal movements. Monitor the patient's nutritional
status and their thoughts while they consume their foods. Nurses should involve the patient in
reality-oriented events that involve human interaction and social communication. It is also very
essential for nurses to explain the difference between the real world and hallucinations. Nurses
should not argue with the patients when they are hallucinating which can make the patient take a
negative step (Kjelby, Sinkeviciute, Gjestad, & Kroken, 2013). Nurses should involve the family
in the treatment process and teach the members how to behave and protect with the patients.
Conclusion
In summary, schizophrenia is a very restricting psychiatric sickness that disturbs human
thinking, behaviour, and mood. Humans start seeing things that are not present in reality.
Humans have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy and that humans are diagnosed with
schizophrenia mental disorder. Schizophrenia can be treated through medications, injections, and

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counselling. Health experts and humans need to treat schizophrenia patients with care and
respect.

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References
Alexander, G., Gallagher, S., & Mascola, A. (2011). Increasing off‐label use of antipsychotic
medications in the United States. Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, 177-184.
Bridges, J., Nicholson, C., Maben, J., & Pope, C. (2013). Capacity for care: meta‐ethnography of
acute care nurses' experiences of the nurse‐patient relationship. Journal of Advanced
Nursing, 760-772.
De Hert, M., Vancampfort, D., Correll, C., & C. U., Merc. (2011). Guidelines for screening and
monitoring of cardiometabolic risk in schizophrenia: a systematic evaluation. The British
Journal of Psychiatry, 99-105.
Javitt, D. C. (2014). Balancing therapeutic safety and efficacy to improve clinical and economic
outcomes in schizophrenia: exploring the treatment landscape. The American journal of
managed care, 73-116.
Kilgus, M., Maxmen, J., & Ward, N. (2015). Essential psychopathology & its treatment. WW
Norton & Company.
Kjelby, E., Sinkeviciute, I., Gjestad, R., & Kroken. (2013). Suicidality in schizophrenia spectrum
disorders: the relationship to hallucinations and persecutory delusions. European
Psychiatry, 830-836.
Kristensen, D., Bauer, J., Hageman, I., & Jorgense. (2011). Electroconvulsive therapy for
treating schizophrenia: a chart review of patients from two catchment areas. European
archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience, 425-432.
Lysaker, P. H. (2010). Schizophrenia and alterations in self-experience: a comparison of 6
perspectives. Schizophrenia bulletin. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 331-340.
Pynn, L. K. (2013). The function of efference copy signals: implications for symptoms of
schizophrenia. Vision Research, 124-133.

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