Psychoeducation in schizophrenia: new developments and approaches in the field

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The aim of this review is to summarize the literature on psychoeducation in schizophrenia published during the past year; this literature shows that pragmatic approaches and new adaptations have been developed. RECENT FINDINGS: The current literature indicates that studies on psychoeducation in schizophrenia in real-world settings show results comparable to those in experimental settings; brief psychoeducational interventions may have long-term effects on relapse and rehospitalization rates; and combining diagnoses may be helpful for new, short psychoeducational formats, but also for smaller hospitals with too few patients with the same diagnosis for group psychoeducation. Peer-to-peer education programs for families and patients have been developed, and culturally sensitive topics, the patients' perspective, quality-of-life issues and sex aspects were integrated into psychoeducation. A new meta-analysis on psychoeducation shows that there is a medium effect size for relapse and rehospitalization reduction if both the patient and the family participate. SUMMARY: Up to the present, patient-directed approaches are much more frequent in clinical practice than bifocal psychoeducation. Therefore, future research must focus on patient-directed psychoeducation and, here especially, on integrating the more stable outpatients, who appear to profit more from psychoeducation than do symptomatic inpatients.