The study of self-care methodes in control of auditory hallucination among schizophrenic patients

Despite taking regular antipsychotic mdications, patients with schizophrenia continue to experience persistent auditory hallucinations. Therefore self-care management strategies are required for mangement of this symptoms. Self-care management strategies can decrease disturbances resulting from hallucination in these patients. Distraction, relaxation and listening to music are effective strategies. This study aimed to establish self-care management strategies to control auditory hallucinations in schizophrenic patient in Shafa Hospital in Rasht. Matrrials and This was a descriptive study and included 100 patients with schizophrenia who had been selected from different wards of Shafa Hospital by means of convenient sampling. To collect data all subjcets filled out a questionnaire, consisted of 4 units: unit 1 was about demographic characteristics and unit 2 consisted of self-report questionnaire with 38 items about self-care management strategies, unit 3 about severity of hallucination, from score 1 (not severe) to score 10 (very severe) and unit 4 about interference of auditory hallucination in activities from score 1 (lack of interference) to score 10 (a lot of interference). The results indicated 45.5 percent of the patients were younger than 30 years old (33.2±9.5), 87.2 percent were male and 70.3 percent were unemployed. There was no relationship beetween demographic variables and severity of hallucination. But there was a significant relationship between marital status and level of interference of auditory hallucination in activities (P<0.03). The most common used self-care management strategies to control auditory hallucination were behavioral methods with a mean value of 10.26 and ST deviation of 3.26. Praying, praise and reading Quran were the most effective methods in this group. Using Pearson correlation coefficient, a significant relationship between the level of interference in activities with severity of hallucination was detected (r=0.64) (P<0.000). The most common source of obtaining information was the patients. The schizophrenic patients from Guilan province more commonly used behavioral domain strategies, in particular reading Qoran and prayer. The socio-demographic variables showed no relationship with, self-care management strategies.