Andrzej Cechnicki, Anna Wojciechowska, Miguel Valdez

The social network and the quality of life of people suffering from schizophrenia seven years after the first hospitalization             31-38

Summary

Aim. The analysis of social networks of people suffering from schizophrenia seven years after their first admission to mental hospital and the analysis of correlations between the social network of people suffering from schizophrenia and treatment outcomes, the quality of life in particular.

Subjects and methods. The study group was sixty-four patients diagnosed with schizophrenia according to DSM III, seven years after the first hospitalisation, among whom there were 34 men (55.7%) and 27 women (44.3%). The average age in this group was 32. Lehman's Life Quality Questionnaire and Bizoń's Questionnaire of Social Support were used.

Results. In the Krakow longitudinal study, the patients with a large network and with a high level of social support have also a higher general subjective satisfaction with the quality of life.

Conclusion. The results are confirmed in the research by Lehman et al., Corrigan and Buican. The lack of connection between the social network parameters and the current health condition as an objective and subjective indicator of the quality of life is incompatible with what is reported by some researchers, who claim that with time the support system gets impoverished, which is hazardous to health and may lead to mental disorders. The hitherto research on the correlations between the social network and the quality of life of people suffering from schizophrenia hasn't been widely described in professional literature, moreover, the obtained results are ambiguous and may still raise many doubts.