IMPROVING THE MENTAL PATIENT’S REAL-LIVE EXPERIENCE
FOREWORD
« Be yourself, fate will reward you one day. Man always has a solution to his problems and the solution is on oneself; even the handicapped person live », words from a person suffering from sclerodermia.
Works already done on disablement and distress concepts laid theoretical base for calculation of result units, as regards quality of life, such as year-persons without disability (APSI). APSI rest on the principle that one year of life in bad health has less use or value than one year in good health. APSI gained following treatment’s beneficial effect are gauged against the cost of the treatment; a cost-benefit analysis results from it.
Improving real-life experience, reducing handicaps, distress and discomfort of patients are particularly important aspects to be considered when the outcome of interventions done on persons suffering from chronic illnesses is measured.
Quality of life is a new problem, that of daily life of a person who has severe and persisting mental health problems, his experience of life, and his assessment of that experience. The interest that we, clinicians and researchers, have in evaluating the quality of life relating to the life of the schizophrenic is explained by the necessity to take into account the real-life experience of the patient himself, the perceptions and preferences of the latter, as regards health decisions.
Even if it is up to us, psychiatrists, to fix the care, it is the patients and their entourage that choose to consult us, to follow our prescriptions and recommendations or to seek for other means of finding an answer to their expectations.
The real-life experience of their state of mental patients, the perception of their own vulnerability, of their experience of the illness and the applied therapeutic means greatly influence their quality of life.
Dr Tchikara
Consultant Psychiatrist
ParirenyatwaHospital,
Harare-Zimbabwe,