1 Mental Health Service, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, Fitzroy, VIC, Australia.
2 Department of Social Work, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2017 Aug;63(5):433-438. doi: 10.1177/0020764017710301. Epub 2017 May 24.
The role of family in supporting service users in coping with illness and engaging in relapse prevention in early psychosis is important. Taking on this caring though is stressful and challenging, and it has been found that support and information for carers assists in their coping and reduces isolation.
To evaluate the current utility of a psychoeducation group program in a public adult mental health service, for the families of people experiencing early psychosis.
A purpose-designed pre- and post-intervention questionnaire was administered to quantitatively measure group participants' changes in perceptions of their understanding of mental illness and its treatment through attending the group. Additional qualitative items were used to determine other knowledge, benefits and any critical feedback.
The group program continues to result in highly significant improvements in family members' understanding of psychosis, recovery, medications, relapse prevention and substance co-morbidities. Additional feedback reaffirmed previous findings that family members find group peer support valuable and that this reduces isolation and the experience of stigma.
The current evaluation, conducted following 10 years of early psychosis group work, found there to be efficacy in family peer support groups and that it is important to provide family interventions in public early psychosis mental health services.
家庭在支持服务使用者应对疾病和参与早期精神病复发预防方面的作用非常重要。然而，承担这种照顾责任是有压力和具有挑战性的，并且已经发现，为照顾者提供支持和信息有助于他们应对压力并减少孤立感。
评估在公共成人心理健康服务中，针对早期精神病患者家属的心理教育团体计划的当前效用。
采用专门设计的干预前后问卷，定量测量团体参与者通过参加团体对其对精神疾病及其治疗的理解的变化。额外的定性项目用于确定其他知识、益处和任何关键反馈。
该团体计划继续导致家庭成员对精神病、康复、药物、复发预防和物质共病的理解显著提高。额外的反馈再次证实了之前的发现，即家庭成员认为团体同伴支持很有价值，这减少了孤立感和耻辱感。
目前的评估是在进行了 10 年的早期精神病团体工作之后进行的，发现家庭同伴支持团体具有疗效，并且在公共早期精神病心理健康服务中提供家庭干预措施非常重要。
