Available Community Resources for Schizophrenia (Essay Sample)

Schizophrenia
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Abstract
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects the mental ability of a person and makes them delusional. People suffering from the disease are typically diagnosed through groupings of their symptoms. Symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations, displeasure in doing activities, disorganization of thoughts, social isolation, among many others. Different resources have been made available to community members to help them understand schizophrenic patients and how best to treat them. These resources are videos, printed materials and publications, and phone resources. They provide support, give additional information, and offer alternative treatment plans for patients diagnosed with mental illness. The resources are provided explicitly for recovering patients and their caregivers to encourage and inspire them in various ways and help them recover from mental illness.
Community Resources for Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental illness generally diagnosed through delusions, changed behavior, disorganized thoughts, and hallucinations. The illness can also be recognized through displeasure in doing previously enjoyable activities, social isolation, and lack of will. People who have this mental illness cannot understand what is happening around them as they decipher things differently. They live in an unreal world that is parallel to the real world. It is common for people living with schizophrenia to be stigmatized by community members due to a lack of understanding of their behavior and mannerism. Nursing management can be quite tricky during the assessment process as data collection is required from several sources to picture the patient's mental condition (Alanen, 2018). A nurse must know the characteristic behaviors of this mental disorder to give an adequate evaluation for suspected cases of schizophrenia. People need to have the necessary information at the community level to help them cope with mental illness diagnoses. These resources are made available to community members interested in understanding the disease and the treatment options available.
Available community resources for schizophrenia
Mental illness like schizophrenia interferes with a person's ability to think clearly and affects relationships with their people (Crider, 2020). There does not exist a medical test that is used to help in the diagnosis of the disease; therefore, doctors rely on checking for a group of symptoms before the diagnosis. A schizophrenia diagnosis is very confusing and terrifying for the patients and their families. It is vital for there to be resources that will help families and patients understand the disease better, thereby enhancing their chances of coping with the disease. These resources come in different forms. They broach treatment options and strategies and help families understand how to live with people suffering from a mental illness and how best they can help them in their treatment. Community resources available for schizophrenia include printable materials, videos, and audio distributed to affected families.
Videos on schizophrenia
Videos are made available to the family of the patients to help them understand the diagnosed mental disorder. According to Shafrin et al. (2017), the symptoms and causes are described in these resources. They are advised on what to do when their patients are experiencing a psychotic episode. Some videos are also used as motivation materials as people share their stories hence remaining informative and encouraging. Recovery stories are provided for the patient's family to have hope, motivating them to help their loved ones through their treatment plan. Other forms of videos also provide the families a platform in which their questions can be answered, hence encouraging a deeper understanding of the disease and all its factors.
There are also video materials that specialists use to help people understand the treatment of schizophrenia. These videos are provided by specialists who deal with psychosis and helps in understanding the benefits of antipsychotic medications. They address the side effects of these medications as well. Specialists explore the various forms of medication, which poses a mild risk to more intensive treatments. They help people understand the treatment options available for people who have schizophrenia.
Printed fact sheets and publications
Several printed materials are published for the community to provide more information about the mental disorder and how it can be curbed. Brochures, flyers, and other forms of publications explain what schizophrenia is and how it affects the patients. These publications are made available to the community, creating a more in-depth understanding regardless of whether the person is directly or indirectly affected. The provision of the publication means that the community members will understand what patients are going through and can help them and their families. It also prevents the stigmatization of the patients because more people have access to more information, as explained by Ladea, Bran, & Claudia (2016).
Phone resources
With the increasing number of diagnoses of people with mental illness, several outreach programs have been enacted to help people cope with the disease. Phone resources are used to help p