Psychoeducational family intervention: Benefits and obstacles reported by mental health professionals

Introduction Despite several guidelines recommend the use of psychoeducational family interventions (PFIs) as add-on in the treatment of patients with bipolar I disorder (a), their implementation on a large scale remains limited (b). Objectives To identify benefits and obstacles in implementing a PFI in the clinical routine care. Methods This was a multicentre, real-world, controlled, outpatient trial, carried out in 11 randomly recruited Italian mental health centres. Mental health professionals received a training on PFI and provided the intervention to patients with bipolar I disorder and their relatives. Difficulties and benefits in performing PFI were collected through an ad-hoc schedule, which was administered at baseline and 5 times during the different stages of the intervention. Results Mental health professionals report significant improvements in the intervention-related benefits over time (T0 = 5.3 ± 2.0 vs. T5 = 7.9 ± 0.9; P P P Conclusions PFIs are feasible in routine care for the treatment of patients with bipolar I disorder and their relatives, and main obstacles are related to the organization of mental health centres, and not to the characteristics of the intervention itself.