Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy on depressive symptoms for Schizophrenic patients in selected Rehabilitation Centres.

Depression is one of the most common symptom seen in Schizophrenic patients. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one of the effective psychotherapy treatment modality for treating depression, which includes both cognitive and Behavioural strategies. It refers to the use of both cognitive restructuring and Behavioural plan of activity scheduling. Aim: To assess the efficacy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy on the depressive symptoms for Schizophrenic patients in selected rehabilitation centres of Pune city. Methods:- True Experimental approach was adopted for the study. 50 samples (25 experimental and 25 control group) which met the inclusion criteria, was selected by simple random sampling technique. The Structured questionnaire was used to assess the level of depressive symptoms in Schizophrenic patients .A pilot study was conducted and the reliability of the tool was established by the split-half method and Cronbach’s alpha (r=0.87). The experimental group was administered with three sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in a gap of 2 days. Data analysis was done by descriptive and inferential statistics. Results:- Findings revealed that the average depression score in pre-test was 39.2 which reduced to 32.4 in posttest by applying paired t-test. Two sample t-test for the comparison of average reduction in depression scores of experimental and control groups was done. The Average change in depression score in the experimental group was 6.9 and control group had a score of 4. Age was found to have a significant association with the depressive symptoms among Schizophrenia patients. Conclusion:- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is proved to be significantly effective in reducing the depressive symptoms among the Schizophrenic patients.