Authors (including presenting author) :
Wong KW, Leung YY, Cheng KN, Lo WY
Affiliation :
Occupational Therapy Department, Kowloon Hospital, Hong Kong
Introduction :
Resilience is the ability to persist in the face of challenges and to bounce back from adversity. It is important to youth with psychosis as they encounter multiple stressors in their developmental stage and it is an important factor in recovery from psychosis. Leisure can be a mean to promote resilience for youth suggested by Jessup et al (2010) and Grunstein and Nutbeam’s (2007). Stebbins (2014) also proposed that serious leisure requiring perseverance and skills can enhance personal development (e.g. sports), as distinct from causal leisure which only generates short-lived pleasure (e.g. watching TV). Hence, “A Better Me” program, which used tennis activity as serious leisure, was proposed to promote resilience for youth with psychosis in Kowloon Hospital.
Objectives :
To foster resilience of young patients with psychosis through “A Better Me” program.
Methodology :
Our tennis program consisted of 7 sessions. After a taste of tennis in the 1st session, patients were prompted to set goals of what tennis skills they wanted to master at the end of the program. The 2nd to 6th sessions were tennis coaching lessons delivered by a tennis coach. Meanwhile, occupational therapists guided them to review their goals and coached them to generate solutions to overcome challenges and setbacks with utilization of their personal strengths. In the last session, patients underwent a tennis exam to evaluate whether their goals had been achieved. A convenience sample of 6 participants with psychosis (1 male and 5 females, aged from 16 to 26) were recruited from EASY out-patient clinic in Kowloon Hospital. The only inclusion criterion was that participants were interested in tennis sport. In the last session, the participants completed a questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions regarding their learning from the program. The written qualitative feedback was analyzed and searched for common themes.
Result & Outcome :
Results: 4 themes were emerged: tennis program as an experience of success; learning of positive mindset in facing challenges (e.g. learn from setbacks, keep trying even failure happened); self-discovery of strengths (e.g. perseverance, courage); hope in pursuing life goals. Conclusion: The findings demonstrated how our tennis program could foster resilience for youth with psychosis in EASY service by providing opportunity of successful experience, strength building and cultivation of positive mindset when encountering challenges.
Co-location with:
