author(s)
Nadia Abed Elgheny Abed Elhameed, Heba Kedess Marzouk and Ola Ali Abed El-fatah Ali Saraya

abstract
Empowerment has come to play a central role in psychiatric nursing and is positively related to essential recovery outcomes as quality of life and level of functioning of schizophrenic patients generally experience not only but also symptoms of their mental illness and public stigma. The aim of the study: The study aimed to investigate and explore the relation between social support, stigma and empowerment on the quality of life among schizophrenic patients. The study sample: was comprised all patient's in inpatient's psychiatric unit and out patient's setting at Assiut university hospital diagnosed schizophrenia. Research Design: Descriptive correlation research design used in this study. Sitting: The study was conducted in inpatient psychiatric department and outpatient setting at Assiut university hospital. Tools: Five tools were used for data collection: Sociodemographic Data; Structured Interview schedules; Social Support scale; Internalized stigma of mental illness scale, Empowerment scale and Quality of life scale. Results: The main results yielded in this study are: There is a significant difference in the levels of social support, most of the inpatients have moderate level of social support, there is a significant difference among inpatient and outpatient alienation, discrimination and stigma resistance, there is a significant differences among inpatient and outpatient group as regard the quality of life levels. Conclusion: there is a negative correlation between the QOL with social support and empowerment among the inpatients and outpatients group and positive correlation between the QOL with all item of stigma for inpatients groups but in discrimination and social withdrawal only for the out patients group. Recommendations psychosocial intervention is recommended to improve patient's empowerment, social support and decrease their internalized stigma.