Structured cognitive-behavioural intervention group, aimed at users of a psychiatric Day Centre
Marinella Canclini, Riccardo Bertoletti, Aldo Faggi
The rehabilitation programme was held in the Day Centre of the Cooperative «AttivaMente» in
Postalesio (SO), and involved 12 users (representing 60% of the users present in the centre). The
meetings, conducted by the Day Centre psychologist, were held weekly on a fixed day of the week in
the hall of the centre.
The study design is of a pre-post kind, based on the comparison of baseline scores with those after
40, 80 and 120 meetings. We assessed subjective quality of life using the instrument Subjective
Quality of Life (QSV; Morosini, Guidi & Palombo, 2000) and users self-esteem with the tool Self-Esteem
(by Eysenck and Wilson, 2000). These tests were also administered to a control group comparable
with the experimental group regarding demographic characteristics and age, respecting the same time
intervals.
Users who spontaneously requested to participate were included in the group.
The manual by Vendittelli et al. (2003), on Intervention in Psychiatric Diagnosis and Treatment, was
used as a model with some changes to better suit it to the Day Centre: the users had the opportunity
to propose topics and, when they did so, connections between them and the broader issues predicted
by the model were created. The intervention produced improvements in readiness to cooperate,
listening skills and the ability to relate to a group; group spirit increased, and the desire to share
started to appear.
Keywords
Cognitive-behavioural group therapy, Controlled study, Psychiatric users, Day
Centre, Treatment effectiveness evaluation.
