الفهرس 
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Abstract
There is known that schizophrenia has an evident effect on patients’relationships and their perceptions of social support .This disorder imposed patients to experience socially dysfunctioning which leads to social,emotional and instrumental deprivation, and finally to social exclusion. Schizophrenia not affects only patients’ perceptions of social relationships but it has an effect also on all domains of patient’s life functioning as autonomy,occupational functioning, cognitive functioning, financial issues,and capacity of performing physical activities and the enjoyment of hobbies .
It was noted that those patients have lack in emotional, informational and financial support, so it is an urgent necessity to know the sources of perceived social support if it is from family ,friends or significant others as well as its effect on the level of community functioning among patients with schizophrenia.
The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived social support and level of community functioning among patients with schizophrenia.
This study followed a descriptive correlational research design. It was conducted in the outpatient clinic of El-Maamoura Hospital for Psychiatric Medicine in Alexandria. Study subjects comprised 150 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (130 male and 20 female).
The data for this study were obtained using the following tools:
Tool 1: A Socio-Demographic and Clinical Data Structured Interview Schedule was developed by the researcher, Tool 2: Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) was developed by Zimet et al. (1988),Tool 3: Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) was developed by Rosa et al.(2007) .
Tools (2, 3) were translated into Arabic language. Then they were tested for its content validity by a jury of 5 experts in the fields of psychiatric nursing and medicine.
Reliabilities of the study tools 2, and 3 were tested using the Cronbach’s alpha method on a sample of 20 outpatients meeting the criteria of the study sample. Cronbach’s alpha for Tool 2 was 0.95, and tool 3 was 0.94.
Each patient who met the inclusion criteria was interviewed individually in order to apply study tools. Clinical data were double checked by reviewing patients’ medical records to complete the data collected from patients. The interview time ranged around 20 minutes for each subject.
The data were collected over a period of three months starting from June 2017 and ending since September 2017.
Data were coded, computerized and then analyzed using the SPSS version 20.0 program to achieve the results.
The followings are the main results obtained by the study:
I: Socio-Demographic and Clinical characteristics of the studied patients
- Age of the studied patients ranged between age ranged between 19 and 50 years, with a mean age of 36.91 ± 6.31years. Meanwhile, 55.3% of them were single, 34.7% were married.
- A high percentage of the subjects (34.0% & 30.7%) had preparatory and secondary education respectively, while only 14.7% of patients had university education.
- Half of the patients weren’t working, the majority of the studied patients (92.7%) were living in urban areas.
- Two thirds of the studied patients were living with their families, while 2.0% were living alone.
- The duration of mental illness ranged from 2 to 28 years with a mean of 9.19 ± 5.03 years.
- The majority of patients (81.3%) were previously admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
II: Perceived social support among the studied patients
- Two thirds of the studied patients (74.0%) perceived a low level of social support, while only 4.0% reported a high level of social support.
- The studied patients perceived a moderate social support from family,significant others 41.50 ± 21.38, 38.31 ± 22.94 respectively and low social support from friends (23.81 ± 25.16).
- There was significant difference in patients’ overall MSPSS score in relation to patients’ age (F=9.094, P=0.001).
- A statistically significant difference in patients’ overall MSPSS score in relation to marital status (F=11.182, P=0.001).
- There was a statistically significant difference in patients’ overall MSPSS score related to their level of education (F= 11.901, P=0.001).
- There was a statistically significant difference in patients’ overall MSPSS score related to their occupation (F=7.118, P=0.001).
- There was only statistically significant difference in patients’ MSPSS score from family and friends in relation to duration of illness where F= 2.631, F= 2.763 respectively.
III: level of functioning among the studied patients
- 65.3% of the studied subjects had a moderate difficulty in functioning.
- There was a statistically significant difference in patients’ overall FAST score in relation to patients age (F= 5.874, P=0.001).
- A statistically significant difference between patients’ overall FAST score in relation to marital status (F=6.320, P =0.002).
- Concerning the level of education there was a statistically significant difference in patients’ overall FAST score related to their level of education (F= 5.691, P=0.001).
- Patients who lived alone demonstrated difficulty in functioning compered to of those who lived with their families (F=4.727).
- There was statistically significant difference in patients’ overall FAST score in relation to a duration of illness (F= 2,545, P=0.042).
- There was a statistically significant difference in patients’ overall FAST score related to their admission (F=3.313, P=0.001).
IV: Relationship between perceived social support and community functioning among the studied patients
- A statistically significant relationship was found between perceived social support in relation to functioning (χ2 = 32.378, MC p < 0.001).
- The more perceived social support, the less the difficulty in functioning for those patients.
In light of the current study findings, the following recommendations are suggested:
- Assessment of perceived social support in patients with schizophrenia may be integrated in their routine clinical assessment.
- Developing and providing community mental health services to patients with schizophrenia and their families to ensure and supplement them with their deficient social support.
- Educational programs for psychiatric nurses should emphasis their significant role in providing emotional and informational social support for patients with schizophrenia and their families.
- Establishment of a community mental health centers that can provide different supportive services to patients with schizophrenia and their families.