This pilot study evaluated a video-based educational program for improving communication skills and reducing family violence between parents and their adult children with schizophrenia. We used a one group pretest-posttest design. The program included a main 90-min video and six stories, each 20-30 min long. We made assessments at baseline and program completion (three months after baseline). Sixty-six parent participants completed the intervention. The average frequency of acts of family violence significantly decreased from 11.4 (SD = 26.2) at pretest to 5.1 (SD = 13.2) at posttest (p = 0.016). Our findings showed significant improvements regarding expressed emotion, psychological distress, family empowerment, and hope, demonstrating preliminary positive results for this video-based educational program. The program was shown to be feasible for support/educational groups of family members of adults with mental disorders to deliver and may also be useful for practitioner-led educational groups for families in public health centers or medical settings to offer.
Keywords: Family caregivers; Family intervention; Family violence; Japan; Schizophrenia.