This study compared the impact of therapy and activity groups on two matched groups of 8 and 9 psychiatric inpatients. Daily sessions of the groups were held for 11 wk. in identical rooms except for the presence of caged finches in one of the rooms. The patients were evaluated before and after the sessions using standard psychiatric rating scales. The group who met in the room that contained animals (a cage with four finches) had significantly better attendance and participation and significantly improved in areas assessed by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Other positive trends indicated that the study should be replicated with larger samples and modified to increase interactions with the animals.
Eighty-seven psychiatric inpatients, all of whom consistently displayed minimal social interaction behavior, were examined in a 2 X 2 X 2 covariance design involving three treatment variables. The major variable of concern was presence versus absence of structured learning therapy (modeling plus role playing plus social reinforcement) aimed at increasing social interaction behavior. Presence versus absence of psychotherapy and patient status (acute-chronic) were the other study variables. Several significant main and interaction effects emerged on social interaction criteria for structured learning therapy. Interaction effects for structured learning therapy and psychotherapy suggested primarily a "mutual inhibition" of treatment effectiveness. The implications of these findings for further studies of structured learning therapy and specific skill enhancement are examined.
PROBLEM Chronic institutionalized patients frequently do not respond to psychotherapy. They also seem to be overrepresented from lower socioeconomic classes(*-4 ) . We believe that most psychotherapy techniques are not tailored to these individuals, since they were developed by middle and upper-class professionals for middle and .upper-class clients (2, 5 ) . Therefore, we have developed a treatment approach called structured learning therapy (SLT) for these "forgotten" individuals. SLT consists of modeling, role-playing and social feedback-reinforcement, a direct 'form of skill training that can help chronic patients learn socially appropriate behavior. A previous study ( 3 ) demonstrated some limited effectiveness of SLT to increase positive social interaction among acute and chronic inpatients, but did not incorporate a dimension of skill training familiar to all students of learning theorytransfer training. Thus, we designed this study to see whether the addition of on-site training enhances the effectiveness of SLT to modify behavior. Our hypotheses were that, in terms of skill acquisition, 5 weeks of SLT and 2 weeks of transfer training > 7 weeks of SLT > 5 weeks of SLT > 7 weeks of social therapy > no therapy. The skills to be acquired were appropriate social interactions during mealtimes that ranged from proper eating behavior to holding conversations. METHOD Subjects.One hundred and twenty chronic inpatients were recruited with the assistance of ward psychiatrists and nurses and agreed to participate. The age range was 19-72 (mdn. = 40), the sexes were represented almost equally and diagnoses were mixed. Mental retardation, sociopathy, and alcohol or drug addiction were excluded.Procedure. Amateur actors made five videotapes, each of which demonstrated a progressively more complex form of meal-time social behavior. The first involved such scenes as using utensils and eating posture. The second modeled perfunctory interactions such as walking past someone with a tray, making room for someone a t the table, etc. The third showed how to request the salt, excuse self from table, offer to get seconds, etc. The fourth demonstrated how to hold conversation. The fifth modeled how to handle negative situations such as spilled food, holding up the line, etc. Both verbal and body language aspects of social appropriateness were stressed. One group of college students was trained to use SLT procedures, while another was trained to interact in a social-companionship form of therapy. The study patients were assigned either to SLT or social therapy after pretesting. Those in the SLT condition met in groups of 10 three times a week (1 hour each) for 5 weeks in the hospital's TV studio. Each session started with the showing of that week's tape, a discussion of the tape, role-playing and videotaping situations relevant to the tape's theme, and playing back the role plays with a great deal of positive reinforcement as the patient's role plays became more and more similar
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