Comparison of the effect of postdischarge education with multimedia and group discussion methods on family caregiving for patients with bipolar disorder in Shiraz Psychiatric Hospitals

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Bipolar disorder is a common psychiatric disorder. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of two postdischarge educational methods including multimedia and group discussion on family caregiving of patients with bipolar disorder. METHODS: In this study, the families of 30 patients with bipolar disorder in Shiraz hospitals were studied and matched in terms of gender and age into two groups. One group received the group discussion and the other received the multimedia teaching method interventions. The demographic variables including age, gender, education, marital status, and relationship with the patient were collected. Data were analyzed using SPSS 18 software. RESULTS: Most of the patients were male and most of their caregivers were female. The results showed that the pre and posttest mean and standard deviations of educational function (P = 0.007), caregiving function (P = 0.0004) and medication function (P = 0.04) of the group receiving the multimedia teaching intervention were significantly different. However, the pre and post-test mean and standard deviations of caregiving function (P = 0.2) and medication function (P = 0.3) of the group receiving group discussion did not show a significant difference. However, there was a significant difference in educational function of this group (P = 0.02). CONCLUSION: The use of multimedia method is more effective than the group discussion method and can be used as a tool to improve the caregivers of patients with bipolar disorder in Iranian society.