Psycho-Education On The Role Of Family In Mental Health Recovery (Essay Sample)

Psycho-education on the role of family in mental health recoveryNameInstructorInstitutionDate
Psycho-education on the role of family in mental health recovery
Rationale for psycho-education
People with mental health issues require constant monitoring and care, but this can be both challenging and demanding, especially for family members who also have to take care of other responsibilities. Therefore, it can be hard finding someone that truly cares about them and is readily available to support them to achieve recovery (Leese, 2014). Studies have shown that establishing therapeutic relationship with people with mental health issues helps them achieve recovery (Aldersey & Whitley, 2015). Such relationships facilitate interaction and instill confidence in caregivers by virtue of patients knowing that there are people who understand their position and are looking after their best interest. Therefore, it is important that family members set up and help their kinsmen with mental health problems because it could be easier forming therapeutic relationships, which could be important in enhancing medication compliance and promoting recovery. Families of psychiatric patients can be involved in the provision of various mental health care services, depending on the severity of the condition, ranging from provision of general information to specialized interventions such as consultation, therapies, and medication (Eassom, Giacco, Dirik, & Priebe, 2014). As established above, the familial bond helps in establishing therapeutic relationships, which help family members to play a significant role in enhancing outcome of various psychological interventions and influences patients’ compliance with medication and treatment plans (Glick, Stekoll, & Hays, 2011), which consequently result to fewer inpatient admission, short stay of inpatients, and generally improves the quality of life of patients because family members are more likely to focus on helping patients achieve emotional and physical well-being (Tempier et al. 2013).
Establishing positive therapeutic patient-centered relationships enhances patient safety and trust (Wyder, Bland & Crompton, 2013), factors that influence patient experience. When patients learn to trust care-givers, they are more likely to participate in treatment and medication processes. When patients willingly take medication and give consent to treatment, it reduces patients’ vulnerabilities to anger and agitation, conditions which are inevitable when caregivers consider patients uncooperative or likely to cause self-harm or harm others and forced to use unconventional means such as mechanical constraint and seclusion to contain them (Bradstreet, 2015).
It is easier for family members to gain trust of mentally ill patients; and consequentially inspire their confidence and willingness to not only give consent to treatment, but also reveal important personal information regarding their symptoms such as suicide ideation (Cohen et al., 2013). By inspiring patients’ confidence about treatment and encouraging them to share their feelings, patients are more likely to receive better treatment and experience positive behavior and recovery. Therefore, family members can influence recovery of their loved ones by using their social ties to create understanding and an environment that will motivate them to share their experiences, seek clarification during decision-making process with regard to treatment, and achieve emotional balance (Wyder et al., 2013). This means that family members can help physicians and mental health nurses to provide alternative care for patients because patients are more likely to be more comfortable with family members than service providers (Gehart, 2012), who they are likely to mistrust because of some unpopular decisions that they might need to make to enhance safety.
Some of the symptoms of mental health problems such as feelings of hopelessness, depression, and numb (Leibenluft, 2011) are likely to hinder patients’ ability to recover because they stop caring about life and sometimes, increasing their vulnerability to commit suicide. This is because, sometimes, patients might feel judged and need someone to actively listen to them so that they can understand their experiences, as opposed to secluding them in institutions and coercing them to take medications without even explaining to them why they need the medication (Wolvin & Cohen, 2012). Therefore, family care-givers are better suited to explain doctor’s instructions, recommendations, and other treatment processes in a simple and friendlier way without medical jargons because they are more likely than professional care givers to bond more during communications (Collins, 2015; Jones, 2010).
Noncompliance, described as the degree to which patients do not follow medication recommendations prescribed by care-givers, is one of the greatest challenges in psychiatric care. Miller and Dimatteo (2013) argued that nonadherence can be either intentional or unintentional, for instance where medication is either misunderstood or carried out incorrectly. Therefore, family members of mental health patients play a significant role in ensuring that patients comply with recommended medication. Miller and Dimatteo (2013) found that patients with both practical and emotional support from both family and friends increased their compliance by 27%. This due to the fact that functional social support improves both trust and quality of relationship between patients and their family members, hence making patients more susceptible to influence from family members. On the other hand, Osamor and Owumi (2011) argued that family members help patients to be compliant by ensuring that they adhere to doctors’ health advice, align their behaviors with prescribed medications, observe recommended lifestyle changes, and attend medical appointments. This means that people with family members who are concerned about their mental status and reminding them about their medication have better compliance with medication compared to patients without support of their families.
On the other hand, Avasthi (2010) found that families that live with and care for people with mental health problems help them to adhere to medication by serving in various roles including, but not limited to, monitoring symptoms and supporting adherence to treatment plans recommended by doctors, and maintaining records of previous medications, hospitalizations, and treatments. According to Avasthi (2010) families’ involvement in these roles result to a wide range of benefits including decreased patient hospitalization and relapses, increased rates of recovery, and improved adherence to prescribed medication and treatment plans.
Family members play a major role in influencing patients’ compliance with medication but if they lack medication knowledge, they can also lead to a myriad of problems ranging from extended patient stay at hospital due to relapse of disease to medication side effects (Pareek & Kalia, 2013). Although mentally ill patients are required to regularly take their medication to avoid relapses, they rarely comply with their medication schedule because they neither have cognitive skills nor insight to their condition (Pareek & Kalia, 2013). Therefore, family member need to assume the responsibility of administering medication and convince them the rationale for taking medication to boost compliance. However, inadequate or lack of medication knowledge among family members administering medication to patients is likely to cause more problems. For instance, family members might not be aware that although psychotropic medications are used in managing patients’ psychiatric symptoms and behaviors, they have potentially detrimentally side effects (Lindsey, 2011) that they should watch out for. Therefore, inadequate or lack of medication knowledge on how different types of psychiatric medications including anxiolytic, antidepressant, and antipsychotics might affect young and old patients, can impair with patients’ recovery. Therefore, family members need to closely work with health professionals to understand different treatment plans and administration of medication to avoid interfering with patients’ recovery and subsequent longer hospitalization.
Outline of the Session/Workshop
Objectives of the workshop
The purpose of the proposed family pyschoeducation workshop is to create an environment conducive to teach the public about the significance of their involvement in mental health care. The public will be taught how to prevent and treat some common signs and symptoms of mental illness using medication. They will be encouraged to take part in ensuring that their mentally ill family members comply with medication. The workshop will be divided into three major sessions, each aim to teach the importance of medication intervention.
Session one: welcome and Introduction
The first session will be 45 minutes long to create an environment conducive to teach the public about their role and significance of getting involved in mental health care and how to detect various signs and symptoms of various mental health conditions such as schizophrenia. First, the session is designed to achieve a rapport between families of people with mental health problems, and the facilitators-mental health professionals. Therefore group discussion and brainstorming will be the ideal methods to use in engaging the audience. The trainers will issue trainee manuals those heights important aspects of family involvement in mental health care.
Expected outcome
The first session is expected to help trainers and trainees acquaint with each other and give the former an opportunity to share their personal experiences with mental health patients and teach them how to detect signs and symptoms o...