Individual or Group Psychoeducation: Motivation and Continuation of Patients with Bipolar Disorders

Bipolar disorder is a lifelong devastating illness with recurrent mood episodes. Pharmacologic treatments have limited efficacy in long-term prophylactic treatment. Psychosocial interventions and structured psychotherapies as add-on treatments have been shown effective in relapse prevention in the last decade. Psychoeducation of patients and families seems to be a useful first step in the psychological treatment of bipolar disorder. However, the content and dimensions of efficacy of well-structured psychoeducation have not yet been established. The patient's perspective may have an impact on efficacy in the areas of attitude, motivation, and continuation/dropout rate. These factors are compared and discussed in individual and group psychoeducation using data from two ongoing studies. The variables of two studies in the recruitment phase were compared. Bipolar patients were more willing to attend individual psychoeducation than group psychoeducation, which resulted in lower dropout rates, but did not reach a level of statistical significance. It was concluded that patients with bipolar disorder are less willing to attend and continue group psychoeducation than individual psychoeducation. Patient preferences, motivations, and the positive and negative aspects of group and individual psychoeducation should be kept in mind when psychoeducation is planned.