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How Professionals View Multifamily Psychoeducation: A Qualitative Study

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Abstract

Severe mental illness causes suffering for the patient as well as the patient’s immediate family. The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has recommended the implementation of multifamily psychoeducation in order to assist patient and family in the recovery process. The aim of this study was to determine how introducing multifamily psychoeducation in Sweden has been viewed by professionals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 service providers, who were involved in evaluating multifamily psychoeducation. Our main findings fell under the headings of defensive culture and unsuitable model. Resistance to introducing the new intervention was found on multiple levels. The model proposed was considered too rigid for both the target group and the organizations because it could not be adjusted to the needs of patients, families, or facilitators. Despite good evidence for the effectiveness of the intervention, there were difficulties introducing the multifamily psychoeducation model in clinical practice. The feasibility of an intervention needs to be evaluated before adopting it as a national guideline.

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Acknowledgments

The authors affirm having received no grants from any funding agency in the public, private, or non-profit sector in conjunction with this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health and Society, Malmö University, 205 06, Malmö, Sweden

    K. Ingvarsdotter, K. Persson & M. Östman

  2. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Karlstad University, 655 88, Karlstad, Sweden

    F. Hjärthag

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  1. K. Ingvarsdotter
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Correspondence to K. Ingvarsdotter.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Human rights and informed consent

The study was approved by the Regional Ethics Board (EPN), Lund, Sweden. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Ingvarsdotter, K., Persson, K., Hjärthag, F. et al. How Professionals View Multifamily Psychoeducation: A Qualitative Study. Psychiatr Q 87, 479–491 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-015-9401-3

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