Personal experience of efficacy in psychoeducational groups for schizophrenia

Background: Psychoeducation is a basic psychotherapeutic intervention in schizophrenia. It is still not sufficiently clear, what the effective elements of psychoeducation are. Objective: What are the therapeutic dimensions of psychoeducation from the patients' perspective and which factors correlate with the personal experience of efficacy? Methods: A total of 97 study patients took part in psychoeducational groups (8 sessions within 4 weeks). The patients rated the therapeutic dimensions with a modified version of the STEPP questionnaire (Krampen, 2002) after each group session. We investigated correlations with socio-demographic variables, neurocognition and the psychoeducational outcome variables "knowledge" and "compliance". Results: For the patients "enhancement of coping competence" and "therapeutic alliance" were the most important psychotherapeutic dimensions of psychoeducation. Age and psychopathology influenced the personal experience of efficacy. While a higher global cognitive performance index was associated with significantly more knowledge gain, there were no significant relations between the global cognitive performance index and the subjective measures. Conclusions: Not only imparting information, but the therapeutic alliance also plays a decisive role in psychoeducation. Thus therapist constancy in psychoeducational groups should be arranged.