ABSTRACT

Background: Schizophrenia is a chronic disease characterized by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, language, sense of self and behavior. Hence, humor in this frame of reference could be used as an alternative to conventional treatment with the goal of helping patients with schizophrenia cope with symptoms, enhance recovery through its emotional, cognitive, social and physiological effects.

Methods: Randomized control trial (RCT) was used. Purposive sample consisted of 40) schizophrenic patients, the study group (n= 20) and control group (n= 20). The patients were selected and allocated randomly into two groups, intervention group (received the humor interventions program) and control group (received traditional care). The study conducted in the Psychiatry and Addiction Prevention "El Kasr AlAini University Hospital and al Rakhawy (Dar El Mokattam) Hospital for Mental Health. Tools for data collection were as following; The Demographic and medical data sheet, - Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS).

Result: revealed that, showed that there is a statistical significant difference between total score of PANSS for both study and control groups at post intervention.

Conclusions: The present study emphasizes the importance of humor intervention program in reducing severity of symptoms of patients with schizophrenia.

Recommendations: Humor training program should be integrated as an intervention in conjunction with pharmacological therapy without contraindications and it can maximize the effect.

Keywords: schizophrenia, humor intervention program