Provision of engagement services for psychiatric patients

Engagement services for persons with mental illnesses improve the quality of their life, social participation and assists their integration in society. Engagement activities provide an opportunity for the persons to change their environment and to engage in their favourite activity. The purpose of the article is to reveal the provision of engagement services for psychiatry patients. The study tasks are: 1) to describe the forms of enegagement services and the potential for their application to psychiatric patients; 2) to establish what possibilities to choose engagement activities have been created for the patients, their participation in engagement activities, motivations, frequency and duration of psychiatric hospital X. The study sample is targeted and criterion-based. While cooperating with the medical staff of an institution 176 investigatees were interviewed according to the following criteria: 1) a person is treated in a psychiatric hospital X, 2) a mental illness of the person is in the remission phase, 3) the person is able to independently answer the questions presented in the questionnaire. The study was conducted in the January of 2015 while respecting ethical principles. It is appropriate to use psychotherapeutic, social and daily living skills development, task performance, food cooking, the development of computer literacy, gardening, social, communication and sharing, physical activity, games, various handicrafts, music, art, bibliotherapy and other activities for psychiatric patients. Through the engagement services, labour, leisure and household skills are developed in psychiatric patients in order to reduce obstacles for psichiatric patients to integrate in society. The study established that the majority of the persons, who are treated in the psychiatric hospital X, are informed about the services provided in the hospital, which they can obtain in the hospital, and participate in the engagement activities organised by the hospital. The study revealed that the investigatees mostly participate in psychotherapeutic, daily living and social skills development, sports, computer literacr, ceramics, food cooking activities in which they can choose independently and decide how often during a week they will attend them and how much time they will allot to an engagement activity. The persons, who do not participate in engagement activities, list their weak health as one of the main reasons why they do not participate in engagement activities