Effect of psycho-education on Knowledge, Attitude and Burden among caregivers of persons with Bipolar Disorder – Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Bipolar disorder is a recurrent and long term mental illness that can seriously affect the lives of patients and their families. Bipolar disorder is different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through in life, its symptoms are severe. They can result in damaged relationship, poor job functioning and even lead to suicide. Method: A randomized controlled trial was used with a sample size of 50; 24 in experimental and 26 in control group. Five sessions of psycho-education was conducted for the caregivers in experimental group after the baseline assessment and the outcome was measured immediately after the intervention and at 1 month and 3 months. Results: The result shows that there was a significant improvement of knowledge and attitude scores among the care givers in the experimental group as compared to the control group (p = 0.001). There was a reduction in burden scores of the experimental group as compared to the control group (p= 0.007). Conclusion: Psycho-education can improve the knowledge and attitude among caregivers of persons with Bipolar Disorder and reduce caregiver burden.