Group psychoeducation for patients with bipolar disorder: a retrospective study on effectiveness in delaying relapse episodes and intensity.

Introduction: Group psychoeducation is effective in preventing relapse in bipolar disorder. It's indicated as an adjunctive intervention to pharmacotherapy for all outpatients. This retrospective, single center experience of group psychoeducation for bipolar disorder over a 6 years period, aims to assess severity of symptoms and comparative relapse episodes and intensity prior to and following psychoeducation as well as evaluating the decrease in hospitalizations and days of hospitalization.

Methods: Between 2014 and 2019 patients with a bipolar disorder were invited to attend a Colom model group psychoeducation (weekly 90 minutes sessions for 22 weeks). Depression and mania were assessed at baseline, following psychoeducation, 6 months and 12 months with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS). Patient specific hospitalization admissions data for 3 years prior to and 3 years following psychoeducation course were accessed. Subgroup analyses were performed according to patient sex and age with ANOVA methodology.

Results: Of the 95 eligible patients, 77 completed psychoeducation: 18 (19%) patients dropped out. Mean patient age was 45 years and 33 (43%) were male. Overall and subgroup specific YMRS and HDRS improved significantly throughout follow-up (p<0.01). Hospitalization analyses (45 patients; 58.4%) revealed a significant decrease in relapse and hospital stay days after psychoeducation, p<0.01.

Discussion: We provide evidence of applicability and efficacy of adjunctive psychoeducation in a real-world setting. Advantages observed were independent of patient sex and age. Analysis of the optimal number of sessions provided to patients according to efficacy and retention rates is required.

Conclusions: Despite inherent study design limitations, retrospective evaluation of a single-center psychoeducation program supports evidence of psychoeducation effectiveness in significantly reducing the severity of bipolar disorder and hospitalizations, despite a drop-out rate of 1 in 5.