Group psychosocial interventions for adults with schizophrenia and bipolar illness: The evidence base in the light of publications between 1986 and 2006

Abstract

The therapeutic approach in the majority of the studies was along the lines of cognitive behaviour therapy and psychoeducation. All studies reported improvement in at least one parameter. Most of them report improvement in skills and overall functioning.

Are Group Psychotherapeutic Treatments Effective for Patients with Schizophrenia? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Given that group psychotherapeutic treatments have been implicated with a variety of improved outcomes [8,22,66], conclusions on their effectiveness are therefore incomplete. To address this limitation, separate analyses were conducted on major symptom domains.…”

“…From a clinical perspective, group psychotherapeutic treatments are also believed to offer social advantages relevant to this population [4,5,6,7,8], who often have smaller social networks and less satisfactory interpersonal relationships compared to a healthy population [9]. Seminal work on group therapeutic processes [10] (including group cohesion, instillation of hope, interpersonal learning and sharing of information) supports the notion that the group setting can be utilised as an agent of change in group psychotherapeutic treatments.…”

“…In their review of controlled studies for schizophrenia conducted between 1986 and 2006, Segredou et al [8] found that, descriptively, all of the 23 studies they identified showed a positive effect on either symptom or skills outcomes.…”

“…Furthermore, whilst attempts have been made to summarise findings from controlled trials exploring the effectiveness of group psychotherapeutic treatments for schizophrenia [8,22,24,25], the conclusions from these studies are limited in scope. For example, the most recent attempt by Segredou et al [8] does not include evidence from non-verbal creative group arts therapies (including music therapy, body psychotherapy and art therapy), which have been shown to be effective in reducing negative symptoms [1]. Furthermore, their findings are limited to a descriptive analysis of the literature.…”

“…Finally, we aimed to explore which group characteristics contribute to any potential group effect. In particular, we considered the therapeutic orientation, number of sessions/length of intervention [22] and/or diagnostic homogeneity [7] as potentially important factors for the impact of group psychotherapeutic treatments [8,24]. …”