Objective This is a 2-year study. The main purposes in the first year are: (1) to build a psychosocial interventions for adult people; (2) to promote multiple psychosocial group interventions, which are emotional control and management group; LRT, health and stress management group; HSB, social interaction group; SAC; (3) to examine the effects of psychosocial group interventions among community adult people; (4) to establish supportive self-help group in community; (5) to provide information for health profession in developing mental health interventions for adult people.
In the second year, the adults who has participated community volunteer services will be recruited in the study. The same psychosocial group interventions were repeated to potential participants. Moreover, community self-help or support groups will be promoted as a conventional mode of continuum of care. Training in psychosocial theory and practice and in group leadership should be incorporated into continuing supportive training program, to increase volunteer group members to provide some psychosocial service for the community-dwelling adults.

The study of the first year
Methods A sample of 260 adults was recruited from communities in Taipei. The data of general health functioning were screened by face-to-face structured interviews on questionnaires. Moreover, a quasi-experimental pretest-test-posttest design was used to test the effectiveness of the 3 psychosocial group interventions with adult subjects. Among these 260 subjects, 60 adults were recruited and randomly assigned to 3 experimental groups. Each experiment group received one of the psychosocial group interventions (LRT, HSB, and SAC). Each group had eight weeks of group interventions. Data collected by face-to-face structured interviews on questionnaires. There were three waves of data collection: pre-test, post-test, and one month follow-up.

Results The sample of the study shows that 80% of them are able to take care of themselves and work independently. However, the majority of subjects has faced medium stress in their daily lives, and has the problems of emotional adjustment. The result of the study showed that the self-control skills and the psychosocial functioning significantly improved in the LRT and HSB groups compared with those of SAC group. Moreover, the improvement of the general health functioning among LRT and HSB groups remained significant at the end of first month during follow-up compared with SAC groups. In addition, general health functioning showed a tendency to decreased with time but still improved over pretest. The results demonstrate that the benefits of multiple psychosocial group interventions on promoting elderly persons psychosocial functioning.

Conclusion Depression is one of the most serious mental health problems among adult people. Most people suffer clinical significant depressive symptoms, but are not diagnosed with major depression. For the persons with chronic depression, the risks of increased use of medical resources, institutionalization, or even death are high. The evidence of this study demonstrates the effects of multiple psychosocial group interventions on promoting elderly persons physical and psychosocial health functioning and their independence.

Key words:Adult and Elderly; Mental Health; Depression; Psychosocial functioning