Schizophrenia family therapy

Family therapy

Improve communication and interaction between families

Reduce stress within families that might contribute to relapse

Low expressed emotions

Pharaoh -strategies

Forming therapeutic alliances with the family members

Reduced stress for caring for family member with SZ

Improve ability to problem solve and anticipate problems

Less anger and guilt

Educate them about SZ

Pharaoh study

Effects of family therapy

gave therapy to one group was not

❌Mental state - mixed findings

as some family therapies improved mental state but others didn’t

✅Compliance with medication- higher medication use and compliance

❌Social functioning-family therapy didn’t effect social functioning as employment and independence

✅Reduction in relapse -during family therapy and 24 months after

Issues with causation

Family therapy increases medication compliance which may cause the reduction in relapse rates and not the family therapy itself -reaping benefits of medication lessens impact of family therapy-more correlational than cause and effect -low internal validity of Pharos study

Methodological issues with Pharoah study

Meta analysis of 53 studies in china -all claimed to use random allocation to conditions-studies from china reveal as not using random allocation

Possibility of double blind studies not being used -could be observer bias as researcher knows which ppt received family therapy and which didn’t

Economic benefits of family therapy

Saving costs from readmissions into the hospitals as it reduces relapse rates and therefore is less money spent on stay also SZ patient and family members have less days off work and can contribute to the economy ,this has long term benefits and effects are seen even after family therapy stops

Impact on family members

Has a positive effect on all family members-not just the SZ one

Lobban-60% reported significant positive impact of the intervention eg:-relationship quality

Alternative treatments

Family therapy is only useful when not in a acute SZ episode -Drug treatment is necessary in order to treat individual with extreme symptoms

Family therapy is only effective when an individual with SZ is at a certain stage where they can gain the necessary support when they are more capable of accepting it.