People with chronic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia often struggle to cope with the basic tasks that life throws at them. Their health condition and the often debilitating effects of medication can make simple things like going to the shop or cleaning the house almost insurmountable hurdles.

Various rehabilitation therapies are used to help people experiencing these difficulties and one group of treatments that have become quite popular are life skills programmes, which are defined as any group or individual programme involving independent functioning in daily living. These programmes could include training in managing money, organising and running a home, domestic skills and personal self-care and related interpersonal skills.

This new Cochrane review investigated the effects of life skills programmes compared with standard care or other comparable therapies for people with chronic mental health problems.

The reviewers only found 7 randomised controlled trials to include in their analysis and rated the overall quality of the evidence as very low.

Here’s what they found:

• There was no significant difference in life skills performance between people given life skills training and standard care (1 RCT, n = 32, MD -1.10; 95% CI -7.82 to 5.62)
• Life skills training did not improve or worsen study retention (5 RCTs, n = 345, RR 1.16; 95% CI 0.40 to 3.36)
• There was no significant difference in PANSS positive, negative or total scores between life skills intervention and standard care
• Quality of life scores were the same between participants given life skills training (1 RCT, n = 32, MD -0.02; 95% CI -0.07 to 0.03) and standard care

The reviewers concluded:

Currently there is no good evidence to suggest life skills programmes are effective for people with chronic mental illnesses. More robust data are needed from studies that are adequately powered to determine whether life skills training is beneficial for people with chronic mental health problems.

Links

Tungpunkom P, Maayan N, Soares-Weiser K. Life skills programmes for chronic mental illnesses. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2012, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD000381. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD000381.pub3.

Life skills programmes for chronic mental illnesses (Cochrane summary).