• J Formos Med Assoc · Aug 2021

    Contemporary psychiatric intervention for chronic schizophrenia patients incarcerated in a religious asylum in Taiwan.

    • Chi-Fa Hung, Liang-Jen Wang, Chih-Wei Hsu, Yu-Chi Huang, Pao-Yen Lin, Yu Lee, Ing-Kit Lee, Wen-Jiun Chou, and Chien-Te Lee.
    • Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
    • J Formos Med Assoc. 2021 Aug 1; 120 (8): 1620-1626.

    Background/PurposeIn 2017, Long-Fa Temple, an illegal religious asylum in Taiwan, was forced to shut down. Hundreds of chronic mentally ill patients were incarcerated there but provided with no modern psychiatric treatment. This study investigated the effectiveness of providing psychiatric intervention for patients subsequently transferred from Long-Fa Temple to a medical center.MethodsIn total, 88 patients (mean age: 57.2 years, 52.3% male) who had been incarcerated at Long-Fa Temple were transferred to a southern medical center. The patients underwent comprehensive biological, psychological, and social treatment for 18 months. The patients were evaluated once a month in terms of their psychotic symptoms, self-care, nutrition status, cognitive function, occupational function, and family function.ResultsRegarding the patients' length of stay, 18.2% were incarcerated in Long-Fa Temple for less than 10 years, 21.6% for 10-20 years, and 60.2% for more than 20 years. In terms of psychiatric diagnosis, 98.9% of the patients had been diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. During the 18-month treatment period, negative symptoms decreased significantly, while the patients' self-care ability, nutrition status, cognition, occupational function, and family function all significantly improved over time. Patients who had been incarcerated for less than 10 years demonstrated better improvements in psychotic symptoms, self-care, nutrition status, and cognitive function.ConclusionContemporary psychiatric intervention is beneficial for chronically untreated mentally ill patients, and the patients who had a shorter duration of illness had a better reserve of recovery. These findings can serve as an important reference for psychiatric intervention in developing countries.Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.

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