Effectiveness of Group Poetry Therapy on Improving Positive and Negative Symptoms of Chronic Schizophrenic Patients

Abstract

Poetry therapy, a form of creative art therapy, utilizes poetry and other stimulating forms of literature to achieve therapeutic goals and promote personal growth. Research has shown the effectiveness of positive and negative symptom control and treatment in schizophrenia, highlighting the need for non-pharmacological interventions. Poetry therapy has emerged as one such intervention in this domain. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of group poetry therapy on positive and negative symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. This experimental study employed a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of the study were hospitalized patients in treatment and rehabilitation centers in Ardabil city. Using cluster random sampling, 22 participants were selected and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received eleven sessions of group poetry therapy, while the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were collected using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and analyzed through one-way analysis of covariance. The results indicated that, after accounting for the pretest effect, the mean of posttest scores of the experimental group participants were lower than those of the control group in positive and negative symptoms (P<0.05), confirming the effectiveness of group poetry therapy intervention. This study demonstrated that group poetry therapy is an effective non-pharmacological treatment for individuals with chronic schizophrenia and can be implemented by clinical professionals in treatment centers.

Keywords

• group poetry therapy
• negative symptom
• positive symptoms
• schizophrenia