Question: In caregivers of adults with psychosis, how effective is psychoeducation, compared to any other intervention, in reducing caregiver burden?

Answer:

Plain language summary

A small amount of low quality evidence found that psychoeducational interventions may help to reduce the burden felt by caregivers when looking after someone with psychosis. More, higher quality research is needed to make more reliable conclusions.

Clinical and research implications

There is some very limited and inconsistent evidence, from small, poor quality randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that group psychoeducational interventions may be effective in reducing caregiver burden for carers of people with psychosis (schizophrenia).

The only good quality RCT identified was conducted in a mixed population (people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder) and found that a psychoeducational intervention, delivered as a series of printed booklets, reduced caregiver burden and improved quality of life.

It should be noted that all studies were conducted in Asia or the Middle East (China, India, Iran and Jordan), and any observed effects may not be transferrable to Western European settings.

Larger, high quality studies, ideally conducted in settings which are directly applicable to the UK, are needed to adequately assess the effectiveness of psychoeducational interventions for caregivers of people with non-affective psychosis.

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