The effectiveness of psychoeducational interventions on family function among families after stroke: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis aimed to synthesize the available evidence on the effectiveness of psychoeducational interventions on family function among families after stroke.

Family function may be improved by psychoeducational intervention, but findings about the effect of psychoeducation on family function among families after stroke have been mixed.

This was a meta-analysis carried out by searching five international electronic databases, including Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science and CINAHL, as well as four national electronic databases, including Chinese Biological Medicine (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP and Wanfang. Two groups of researchers screened the studies independently, assessed the quality of the studies and extracted data. Meta-analysis was performed by using the RevMan 5.3 software.

Five studies on psychoeducational interventions were included. Pooled analysis of these studies showed a small effect of the interventions on improving family function (WMD: -0.13, 95% CI: -0.24 to -0.01, P < 0.05). Subgroup analysis showed significant differences between the psychoeducation and control groups at 1 month postintervention (WMD: -0.12, 95% CI: -0.18 to -0.05, P < 0.05) and more than 6 months postintervention (WMD: -0.14, 95% CI: -0.24 to -0.04, P < 0.05). The psychoeducational interventions also had positive effect on improving the problem solving (WMD: -0.22, 95% CI: -0.14 to -0.03, P < 0.05) and communication (WMD: -0.23, 95% CI: -0.41 to -0.05, P < 0.05) functions of the family. There were significant differences in the group of dyad intervention (WMD: -0.14, 95% CI: -0.25 to -0.02, P < 0.05) and the group using face to face method (WMD: -0.58, 95% CI: -0.84 to -0.32, P < 0.05).

Synthesized results demonstrated the favourable effect of psychoeducational interventions on the improvement of the family function among families after stroke, especially in terms of family problem solving and family communication. Future psychoeducational intervention research design should consider the combination of multiple intervention methods and the applicable population of intervention.