Evaluating the Effectiveness of Group Hope Therapy on Quality of Life of Family Members of Patients with Schizophrenia

The literature suggests that family caregivers of schizophrenic patients report poor quality of life. Lack of knowledge about how to face patients’ condition and insufficient problem solving skills for solving problems that are caused by patients’ condition are related to lower quality of life among family caregivers. The current study aimed to increase family caregivers’ coping and problem solving skills and motivate caregivers to solve their problems by means of hope therapy. Thirty family caregivers of schizophrenic patients participated in the study. Fifteen caregivers were assigned to hope therapy group and 15 caregivers were assigned to control group.The hope therapy consisted of 8 sessions (4 weeks). Each session took two hours. Participants in hope therapy group were asked to complete measures of quality of life and hope beforefirst session and again after completion of the program. In addition, control participants completed the same measures twice with the same interval time sequence. It was found that participants in both groups did not significantly differin quality of life and hope at baseline. Analyses of covariance showed that participants in hope therapy group reported higher score compared to control participants in vitality (p=.001), general health perception (p=.001), social role functioning (p=.006) and mental health (p=.001) at post intervention measurement. Other findings were not significant. The findings indicated that hope therapy is an effective treatment for increasing caregivers’ quality of life mainly in psychological aspects.