Abstract:
This study is a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control groups research design. The object were to compare: 1) quality of life in schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms before and after received group health education combined with physical exercise, and 2) quality of life in schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms who received group health education combined with physical exercise and those who received regular nursing care. The samples of 40 schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms who met the inclusion criteria were recruited from patients who living in community, Muang district, Uttaradit province. The samples were matched-pairs with age and duration of illness then randomly assigned into either experimental or control group, 20 subjects in each group. The experimental group received health education combined with physical exercise, whereas the control group received the regular nursing care. The research instruments consisted of: 1) health education combined with physical exercise developed by the researcher based on health education concept of Apiwan Kaewwannarat (2003) combined with physical exercise process of Acil, Dogan & Dogan (2008) and group process concept of Marram (1978), 2) negative syndrome scale, and 3) WHOQOLBREFTHAI. All instruments were tested for content validity by 5 experts. The reliability of the 2nd and 3rd instruments were reported by Kuder-Richardson 20 method and Cronbachs Alpha coefficient as of .73 and .95, respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistic, and t-test. The conclusions of this research were as follows: 1. quality of life in schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms who received group health education combined with physical exercise was significantly higher than that before at p .05; 2. quality of life in schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms who received group health education combined with physical exercise was significantly higher than those who received the regular nursing care at p .05.