Abstract
Background: Among Family-Based Services for the treatment of severe mental illnesses, multi-family models gained particular attention, given the potential usefulness of mutual feed-back, motivation and encouragement among families.Methods: The Psychodynamic Multi-Family Group Model has been proposed since 1997 in some Community Mental Health Services in Rome. Since 2011 multifamily groups are held weekly in all the six Districts of the Department of Mental Health that serves a population of more than one million people, and data have been collected since 2015 in three Districts. A total of 794 individuals attended the meetings in the period 2015–2019.Results: Eighty-six percent of those who started, attended more than one meeting. The mean of occurrences of participation among patients was 18.6, among mothers 25.6 and among fathers 21.6. The 794 participants belonged to 439 family units, among which 180 comprised only the patient, 76 only parent(s) or other close person(s), and 183 comprised parent(s) or close person(s) with the patient. Patients participating alone were older than those of families who participated as a whole. Families including the patient showed the longest duration of attendance and the highest prevalence of a diagnosis of schizophrenia in the index patient. Families who had been attending the multifamily groups since a long time maintained a high rate of attendance.Conclusions: Multifamily groups represent a setting where patients can meet with other people and professionals in a free still structured way, and with not strictly therapeutic objectives. The high number of patients who attended alone suggests that such participation corresponds to a self-perceived need of open and free setting facilitating sharing of problems and solutions. The good tenure of the interventions, the high participation, and the feasibility in the long-term suggest that multifamily groups can be implemented in the mental health services of a large city, are sustainable over many years, and can represent a valuable resource for many patients and families.
Highlights
Contemporary mental health systems are still challenged by the need to offer adequate answers to people with severe and persistent mental disorders [1]
The results presented here are relative to the data systematically collected from July 2015 to November 2019 in all six CMHCs of Districts 1, 2, and 3
The six CMHCs where the sessions took place were in the Eastern metropolitan area of Rome (Districts 1, 2, and 3) and were part of the Department of Mental Health of the Health Trust Roma 1
Summary
Contemporary mental health systems are still challenged by the need to offer adequate answers to people with severe and persistent mental disorders [1]. The most standardized and manualized models were most frequently investigated and evaluated for their efficacy: metaanalyses confirmed their effect on relapse and readmission rates, treatment adherence, functional and vocational status, perceived stress among patients, levels of burden and distress and family relationships [6, 7]. Their implementation is considered evidence-based and recommended in clinical guidelines for the treatment of psychotic disorders [8, 9] as well as in other areas, like eating disorders [10] and other conditions. Among Family-Based Services for the treatment of severe mental illnesses, multi-family models gained particular attention, given the potential usefulness of mutual feed-back, motivation and encouragement among families
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