Animal-Assisted Therapy in Patients With Schizophrenia

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) can be helpful to improve the psychiatric, emotional, physical,and social status in patients with physical and mental illness and the elderly. The study aims to investigate the effects of AAT program in middle-aged and older patients with schizophrenia. The investigators will recruit 40 patients with schizophrenia in psychiatric ward randomised into AAT group and control group. AAT group will complete the 12-week program. This study contains two assessment sessions before and after intervention, including PANSS, ACIS, MoCA-T, CHI, DASS-21, CST, TUG and 5MWT.