The Efficacy of Psycho-Educational Group Program on Medication Adherence and Global Functioning of Patients with Bipolar Disorder Type I

Background: psycho-education is now considered as part of the integrated treatment for bipolardisorder. this study aimed to determine the efficacy of group psycho-education on medicationadherence and global functioning of patients with bipolar disorder type i.methods: 45 patients with bipolar disorder type i were allocated one of the three groups of psycho-educationplus pharmacotherapy, pharmacotherapy and placebo plus pharmacotherapy. a psycho-educationalprogram was conducted for the psycho-educational group during 9 weekly sessions. medication adherenceand global functioning of all the three groups were evaluated before the intervention, three months and sixmonths after the intervention using medication adherence rating scale (mars) and global assessmentof functioning (gaf). anova was performed to examine the data.results: in the first and second assessments, the mean score of medication adherence and gobalfunctioning for patients in the psycho-educational group was significantly higher than that in thecontrol and placebo groups (p=0.001). medication adherence score of the psycho-educational groupwas increased from 6.27(0.88) to 7.92(1.38). while the mean score of the psycho-educational groupincreased from 56.6 (3.58) to 64.17 (2.12):, the global functioning reduced from 56.27(3.17) to 54.17(5.08)in the control group and from 56.67 (3.58) to 56 (4.36) in the placebo group.conclusion: psycho-educational program plus pharmacotherapy was effective in improvementmedication adherence and global functioning of bipolar patients.