Empowerment for Male Schizophrenia with Low Self-Esteem

Abstract

        Schizophrenia is known to cause the most disorientation to mental illness patients due to its severe emotional distress and functional disability that interrupt to person’s community and social roles. A fully recovery was reported as rare cases. In this way, the needs of continuing caring and difficult processes of chronic treatment have a significant negative impact on their caregivers and/or family members.  During a long-term care, their caregivers are under the burden of stress, bad attitudes and negative perception of caring. This results in abandon such patients at the hospitals.  Consequently, patients develop suffering and self-criticism as an unwanted or punished person.  This feeling had a negative affects to the patients’ self-concept, particularly male patients as it is observed that they develop higher self-esteem compare to females. Generally, males are appreciated by societies due to their greater incomes compare to those of female. With chronic illness, earning becomes rather impossible and thus leads to a perception of self-unvalued, lack of self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and powerless.

        In present, treating Schizophrenia patients with a combination of psychosocial treatment was found to be more effective than that of medications solely. Various literatures reported that an empowerment intervention was recommended for mental illness and psychiatric problems.  However empowerment was done at a limited scale and only on healthy people and physical illness patients.  Thus, empowerment intervention was determined to fill this gap in order to help Schizophrenia patients enhance their self-esteem, potentials and self-care management.  The ultimate goal is to improve quality of life of Schizophrenia patients.