Functioning Management and Recovery, a psychoeducational intervention for psychiatric residential facilities: a multicenter follow-up study.

Aim: Functional Management and Recovery is a standardized Psychoeducational Intervention, derived from "Integro", an effective salutogenic-psychoeducational intervention for people in recovery journey, designed to improve recovery and functioning of individuals with psychotic disorders in Psychiatric Residential Facilities (PRFs). The aim of this study is to evaluate the primary and secondary outcomes of this intervention elaborated specifically for PRFs where evidence based structured interventions seem rare and desirable.

Methods: 66 individuals with psychotic disorders were recruited in 9 PRFs dislocated in the North, Center and South Italy and 63 underwent a multicenter follow-up study with a two time-point evaluation (t0, pre-treatment and t1, 6 months; ). At each time point, social functioning was assessed as primary outcome by the Personal and Social Performance scale (PSP); furthermore, psychopathological status was assessed by Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Recovery by Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS), Cognitive Functioning by Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), Stress management by Stress-Scale, Cognitive Flexibility by Modified Five-Point Test (M-FPT), Emotional Intelligence by Emotional Intelligence Index (EI-I), the PRF Atmosphere and the Opinion of users about the PFR by an ad hoc questionnaire. The Abilities Knowledge, the Utility and Pleasantness of sessions were measured by an ad hoc list of items.

Results: 63 individuals out of 66, 52 (82,5%) affected by schizophrenia and 11 (17,5%) by bipolar I disorder with psychotic symptoms according to DSM-5-TR completed the study. At the end of the study, 43 (68,3%) were male, 57 (90.5%) were single, 5 (7.9%) engaged, 1 (1.6%) married; 45 (71.4%) unemployed. The total scores of PSP, RAS, BPRS, BANS, Stress management, Abilities Knowledge, Utility and Pleasantness of sessions showed a statistically significant improvement at t1 vs. t0. Two sub-scales out of 5 of M-FPT showed a statistically significant improvement. The Emotional Intelligence, the Unit Atmosphere and the Opinion of Users about PFR improved without statistical significance. Six months after the end of the follow-up study 22 individuals of the sample were dismissed with a very high turnover.

Conclusions: After a six-month follow-up (a short period of time), these results showed improvement in functioning, the primary outcome, as well as in the following secondary outcome variables: RAS, BPRS, BANS, Stress management, Abilities Knowledge, two sub-scales out of 5 of M-FPT, Utility and Pleasantness of sessions. Overall, a remarkable impact of psychoeducational structured intervention on the key Recovery variables is observed. Further studies are needed to address extent and duration of these improvements.