چكيده لاتين :
Background: Bipolar mood disorder type 1 is one of the most
serious psychiatric disorders. We aimed to assess the efficacy
of a short-term family.focused treatment for patients with bipolar
mood disorder type 1 in a one-year follow-up period.
Methods: Sixty patients with bipolar mood disorder and acute
mania episodes who referred to Ibn-e-Sina Psychiatric Hospital
in Mashhad were recruited. Half of them were randomly assigned
to the psycho-education group. Their available adult
family members received a psycho-educational training session
before the patientsי discharge from the hospital. All patients received
concurrent appropriate pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy.
All the patients were evaluated by a blind home-visit team
every 3 months for a period of one year. The evaluation included
the number of psychiatric visits, patientsי adherence, relapse
status, number of re-hospitalizations, and time to relapse.
Results: Fifty-seven patients completed the trial. In the experimental
group, there were four patients with relapse
(13.79%) and in the control group nine patients (31.58%) had
relapse of the disorder (P=0.006). The mean time of taking
medications in the education group was 11.41 months. This
time was 9.14 months in the control group (P<0.001). There
was also a significant difference between the two groups in
terms of frequency of psychiatric visits (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Short.term family-focused psycho-education is
an effective adjunct to pharmacotherapy for bipolar mood disorder.
Further studies are needed to evaluate the efficacy and
cost-effectiveness of long-term family-focused psychoeducational
treatment for patients with bipolar mood disorder.
Iran J Med Sci 2009; 34(2): 104-109.
