Nurse-led Psycho-education Program for People With First-onset Mental Illness (APN-PEP)

"The program was modified from the psycho-educational, motivation-driven and emotionally supportive programs developed and previously tested by the research team in Chinese people with different kinds of serious mental illness, mainly including schizophrenia spectrum disorders and mood disorders by Chien and his colleagues in 2012, and adherence therapy for people with psychotic disorders by Gray et al. (2010).~\[Note: SPBB consists of 5 modules (Module 1: Caregiver's well-being; Module 2:Getting the best out of support services; Module 3:Well-being of the person with schizophrenia; Module 4:Dealing with the \[psychosocial\] effects of the illness; and Module 5: Dealing with \[physical and mental health\] effects of the illness).\]"

These services consisted of medical consultation and treatment by the attending psychiatrist (i.e., around every four weeks), brief education sessions (i.e., 3 or 4 one-hour sessions) on mental illness and treatment received by psychiatric nurses, and advices and referrals for community mental health and social welfare services available and/or family counseling by a psychiatric nurse or medical social worker in each clinic.