Abstract
Aims: The aims of the present study were to assess: the effectiveness of psychoeducation in mental health service (MHSs) in terms of time to first hospitalization during 4-year follow-up; the number and the days of hospitalizations, and the number of people hospitalized at 4-year follow-up; and variables associated with better outcome in BD patients. Methods: This is a controlled study involving an experimental group (N = 57) and a control group (N = 52). The treatment phase consists of 21 weeks, in which all participants received TAU, while the experimental group received additional psychoeducation. Results: The survival analysis showed significant differences in terms of time to first hospitalization of up to 4-year follow-up: the patients in the psychoeducation group showed a longer time free from hospitalizations than the control group. Concerning the predictors of time to first hospitalization, the only factor that showed a trend to statistical significance was psychoeducation. Conclusions: This is one of few studies assessing the long-term effectiveness of psychoeducation in a naturalistic setting. The data confirm that psychoeducation can impact illness course, in terms of longer time free from hospitalizations. Trial registration: ISRCTN17827459
Highlights
Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic and recurrent mental disorder, which often causes severe disability among people who suffer from it
We suggest that psychoeducation should be offered to all patients with BD and those at an early stage of the disease
The results of this study show that patients who participated in psychoeducation had a longer time to first hospitalization, after 4 years, compared to patients who received treatment as usual (TAU) only
Summary
Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic and recurrent mental disorder, which often causes severe disability among people who suffer from it. Even though medication is needed, the role of psychosocial factors both in the onset and in the progression of BD has become progressively evident and has led to the development of several psychosocial approaches as adjunctive treatment to pharmacological therapies. Among the several psychological treatments, psychoeducation has shown its efficacy, so that recent reviews of evidence-based guidelines for the clinical management of BD state that “all patients with BD should be offered group or individual psychoeducation” [1, 2]. Chatterton and colleagues [8] in their meta-analysis showed that psychoeducation is very effective to improve medication adherence. A current review, aimed to assess the literature on the efficacy of several types of psychoeducation (individual, group, family, internet-based), showed that group and family psychoeducation are the most efficacious; in contrast, the individual and internet psychoeducation need further study [9]
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