Abstract
Aim: We aimed to systematically review the evidence of the effectiveness of family interventions for caregivers of people with recent-onset psychosis compared with usual psychiatric care. A secondary objective was to directly compare the effects of different types of family interventions.
Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), CINAHL Complete and EBSCOhost were searched to identify relevant randomized controlled trials. Trial data were extracted following the procedures described in the Cochrane Handbook of systematic reviews. Random-effects models were used to pool the intervention effects.
Results: Twelve studies including 1644 participants were included in this review. With the exception of a high risk of performance bias inherent to the nature of the psychosocial interventions, the studies had an overall low or unclear risk of bias, suggesting that sources of bias are unlikely to lower confidence in the estimate of intervention effects. Meta-analyses were conducted for 4 different participant outcomes reported in 9 studies. Compared with usual psychiatric care, family intervention was more effective in reducing care burden over all follow-up periods. Family intervention was also superior to usual care with regards to caregiving experience in the short term and improved utilization of formal support and family functioning over longer-term follow up. Mutual support is more effective than psychoeducation in improving family functioning when measured 1 to 2 years after the intervention but had equivalent effects on utilization of formal support services.
Conclusions: This review provides evidence that family intervention is effective for caregivers of recent-onset psychosis, especially for care burden where the positive effects are enhanced over time.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 535-560 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Journal | Early Intervention in Psychiatry |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2018 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, CIBERSAM, the Madrid Regional Government (S2010/BMD-2422 AGES), the European Union Structural Funds, Fundacion Alicia Koplowilz, Fundacion Mutua Madrilena and a predoctoral fellowship award from Gobierno de La Rioja, Spain
Funding Information:
Funded by the General Research Fund 2014-2015, University Grants Committee, Hong Kong (PolyU15411/14H)
Funding Information:
A grant from Australian Rotary Health Research Fund (Mental Health)
Funding Information:
Funded by Australian Rotary Health Research Fund (Mental Health)
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
