EFFECTIVENESS OF A NURSE-LED DIGITAL SELF-MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME ON ILLNESS AWARENESS, COPING SKILLS, MEDICATION ADHERENCE, AND PSYCHOSOCIAL FUNCTIONING AMONG PERSONS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA IN SELECTED PSYCHIATRIC SETTINGS OF MADHYA PRADESH

Background: Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that can adversely affect perception, cognition, behaviour, social relationships, occupational functioning, and independent living. In addition to pharmacological treatment, persons with schizophrenia may benefit from interventions that strengthen illness awareness, coping abilities, medication adherence, and psychosocial functioning. Digital technology provides opportunities for nurses to extend structured self-management support beyond routine clinical encounters. Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of a nurse-led digital self-management programme on illness awareness, coping skills, medication adherence, and psychosocial functioning among persons with schizophrenia in selected psychiatric settings of Madhya Pradesh. Methods: A quantitative pre-experimental one-group pre-test–post-test research design was adopted. Twenty clinically stable persons diagnosed with schizophrenia were selected using purposive sampling from selected psychiatric settings in Madhya Pradesh. The participants received a structured nurse-led digital self-management programme focusing on illness understanding, symptom monitoring, medication self-management, adaptive coping, stress management, early warning-sign recognition, communication, problem-solving, and psychosocial recovery. Pre-test and post-test assessments were conducted using appropriate standardized or validated measures. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for analysis. Results: Illustrative analysis demonstrated improvement across all four outcomes. Mean illness-awareness scores increased from 12.30 ± 3.15 to 17.65 ± 2.39; coping-skills scores increased from 42.75 ± 7.84 to 56.90 ± 6.71; medication-adherence scores increased from 4.60 ± 1.35 to 6.35 ± 1.09; and psychosocial-functioning scores increased from 51.20 ± 8.46 to 64.85 ± 7.32. The pre-test–post-test differences were statistically significant (p<0.001 in the illustrative analysis). Conclusion: The nurse-led digital self-management programme showed potential for improving illness awareness, coping skills, medication adherence, and psychosocial functioning among persons with schizophrenia. Larger controlled studies with longer follow-up periods are required to determine sustained effectiveness.