James Beauchemin, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work, co-authored the article, “Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit Practices for Schizophrenia: An Outcome Literature Review on Randomized Controlled Trials,” published in the peer-reviewed Community Mental Health Journal.
Beauchemin was joined by co-authors Xiafei Wang, Change Liu and Mo Yee Lee, all from the College of Social Work at The Ohio State University. The team reviewed articles that investigate the effectiveness of treatment pertaining to patients with schizophrenia; more specifically, articles that focus on treatments using integrative body-mind-spirit practices. These practices are different than traditional practices as use holistic approaches to treat schizophrenia in lieu of medicine.
Authors conducted a systematic literature review that involved collecting data and reviewing research articles that feature outcomes for integrative body-mind-spirit practices for patients with schizophrenia. Within this review, the authors’ main goal was to identify the level of research that supports each integrative body-mind-spirit practice to further understand if certain practices have better outcomes than others. This included practices of mental health treatments for patients with schizophrenia such as holistic, massage, mindfulness intervention, yoga, therapeutic touch and aromatherapy treatments.
The authors reviewed 13 published studies that identified outcomes of these practices. From there, researchers measured and rated the quality and effectiveness of research support for each treatment on a scale between zero and seven, with a higher score indicating superior quality.
As a result, Beauchemin and his co-authors found that of the 13 studies, each integrative body-mind-spirit practice showed the same level of effectiveness and promise in treating a patient with schizophrenia. However, they did find that of all researched integrative body-mind-spirit practices, mindfulness intervention, yoga and tai chi were among the most common of the practices.
– By Taylor Music