Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande - FURG, Rio Grande, RS, Brazil.
Health and Behavior Postgraduate Program, Universidade Católica de Pelotas - UCPEL, Pelotas, RS, Brazil.
Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2014 Jun 26;7:167-74. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S52352. eCollection 2014.
Changes in biological rhythm are among the various characteristics of bipolar disorder, and have long been associated with the functional impairment of the disease. There are only a few viable options of psychosocial interventions that deal with this specific topic; one of them is psychoeducation, a model that, although it has been used by practitioners for some time, only recently have studies shown its efficacy in clinical practice.
To assess if patients undergoing psychosocial intervention in addition to a pharmacological treatment have better regulation of their biological rhythm than those only using medication.
This study is a randomized clinical trial that compares a standard medication intervention to an intervention combined with drugs and psychoeducation. The evaluation of the biological rhythm was made using the Biological Rhythm Interview of Assessment in Neuropsychiatry, an 18-item scale divided in four areas (sleep, activity, social rhythm, and eating pattern). The combined intervention consisted of medication and a short-term psychoeducation model summarized in a protocol of six individual sessions of 1 hour each.
The sample consisted of 61 patients with bipolar II disorder, but during the study, there were 14 losses to follow-up. Therefore, the final sample consisted of 45 individuals (26 for standard intervention and 19 for combined). The results showed that, in this sample and time period evaluated, the combined treatment of medication and psychoeducation had no statistically significant impact on the regulation of biological rhythm when compared to standard pharmacological treatment.
Although the changes in biological rhythm were not statistically significant during the time period evaluated in this study, it is noteworthy that the trajectory of the score showed a trend towards improvement, which may indicate a positive impact on treatment, though it may take a longer time than expected.
生物节律的变化是双相情感障碍的各种特征之一，长期以来一直与疾病的功能障碍有关。目前只有少数可行的心理社会干预措施可以处理这个特定的问题；其中之一是心理教育，尽管它已经被从业者使用了一段时间，但直到最近才有研究显示其在临床实践中的疗效。
评估在接受药物治疗的基础上进行心理社会干预的患者的生物节律调节是否优于仅使用药物的患者。
这是一项随机临床试验，比较了标准药物干预与药物联合心理教育的干预。使用神经精神病学评估的生物节律访谈对生物节律进行评估，这是一个 18 项的量表，分为四个领域（睡眠、活动、社会节律和饮食模式）。联合干预包括药物治疗和短期心理教育模式，总结在一个 6 个小时的个人会议的协议中。
该样本包括 61 名双相情感障碍 II 型患者，但在研究过程中，有 14 名患者失访。因此，最终样本包括 45 名患者（标准干预 26 名，联合干预 19 名）。结果表明，在这个样本和评估时间段内，药物治疗联合心理教育与标准药物治疗相比，对生物节律的调节没有统计学上的显著影响。
尽管在本研究评估的时间段内，生物节律的变化没有统计学意义，但值得注意的是，评分的轨迹显示出改善的趋势，这可能表明治疗有积极的影响，尽管可能需要比预期更长的时间。
