Onoharigho, Festus Dafe

Dept. of Health and Safety Education, Delta State University, Abraka

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of health education on community reintegration among discharged psychiatric patients in Aghor and Warri Central Hospitals in Delta State. The study targeted at using health education as an intervention to mitigate stigma, misconception and rejection against mentally ill persons and promote their acceptance, recovery and successful community reintegration. Three (3) research questions were raised and three (3) hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 alpha level. The study adopted the quasi-experimental research design of the pretest, posttest and control group. The sample of the study consisted of 21 adults (12 males and 9 females) of the Agbor and Warri Central Hospitals. The instrument for data collection was a self-structured scale with a reliability index of 0.66. The intervention lasted six (6) weeks. Differential statistics was used to answer the stated three (3) research questions, while the t-test was used to test the stated three (3) hypotheses at alpha level of 0.05. Among the three(3) stated hypotheses, 2 were rejected only one was retained. The analyzed result findings revealed that, there was significant improvement on their mental health recovery, acceptance and adequate community reintegration after the intervention. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that professional health educators, health education instruction and community reintegration training should be combined with the conventional hospital discharged programme/procedure for a better community reintegration.