Two Strategies for Family Intervention in Schizophrenia: A Randomized Trial in a Mediterranean Environment

Controlled intervention studies carried oat in families of schizophrenia patients have been shown to have a positive impact in relapse prevention, but it remains to be seen whether different forms of family intervention affect outcomes other than relapse and hospital read-mission in different ways. This study compared the outcome profile of relevant clinical variables after two different family intervention strategies for schizophre-nia patients in public health care in a Spanish sample. We conducted a randomized controlled study compar-ing (1) a relatives group (RG) and (2) a single-family behavioral family therapy (BFT), both offered as stan-dard treatment in one catchment area in Valencia. All randomized patients were included in the main analy-sis, and all cases remained in the therapy group to which they were originally assigned regardless of whether they suffered a relapse. The relapse rate at 12 months for the 87 cases studied was not significantly different in the two groups, but the two approaches did affect outcomes other than relapse and rehospital-ization (such as social functioning, dose of antipsy-chotic medication, "delusions " and "thought disor-der") in different ways. The BFT approach offered more advantages than the RG approach. The results suggest that these approaches should always be imple-mented in a clinical environment in a Mediterranean setting