Mood disorders are characterised with high relapse and hospitalization rates as well as dramatic consequences in quality of life, professional and social functioning resulting from chronic course. Deterioration of social functioning remains in remission periods. A systematic review of the literature published on psychoeducation up to 2007 was carried out using the electronic data bases. Psychoeducation is defined as ?educating or improving a person with psychiatric disease to serve a treatment and rehabilitation purpose?. The opinion that only drug treatment is not sufficient in treating psychiatric diseases and that psychosocial rehabilitation programs should also be widely used, becomes widespread. Educating the people with psychiatric disease and their families is an important factor. Thus,the patient and his family become parties of a therapeutic cooperation with the treatment team. It has been observed that when patients are educated about their diseases and the drugs they use, they tend to take more responsibility and adherence to drug therapy and the adherence increases with sharing ther experiences, wrongful thought and problems. This relieves the patient?s burden and contributes to the treatment results positively. Consequently, psychoeducation provides significant improvements in bipolar disorder and its treatment; attitude toward disease, symptom recovery, prevention of depressive and hypo(manic) episodes, decrease in hospitalization periods and rates, improvement in social-professional functioning and quality of life, contribution of the family to the treatment and prevention of suicides. Psychoeducation is strongly recommended but it is also emphasized that it should be used in additionto other treatments and not alone. Educational attempts not only decrease the relapses and recurrences but also lead to awareness of the symptoms of an impending disease and shorter and less severe episodes.
Key words: Psychoeducation, mood disorders, bipolar, rehabilitation
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