A psychoeducational workshop for depressed patients, family, and friends: description and evaluation

Since 1982 depressed patients enrolled in a treatment study at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and their family and friends have participated in a day-long psychoeducational workshop conducted by the clinic's staff. The workshop is designed to help family and friends become useful, long-term resources for patients with recurrent depression and to enlist their assistance in the treatment study. During the morning session, the group discusses the symptomatology, theory, etiology, and treatment of depression, and staff describe the treatment study. In the afternoon, patients and their families and friends meet separately, the patients to discuss methods of coping with depression and interacting with significant others, and the families to discuss the impact of the patient's depression on their lives and to share common problems. More than 83 percent of family and friends who evaluated the workshop considered it moderately or extremely helpful. The results of the evaluation are summarized.