Carers of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis are at an increased risk of developing their own physical and mental health problems. Psychoeducation has been found to improve carer wellbeing and reduce distress. However, few psychoeducation interventions have considered the resource constraints on mental health services and the impact that these can have on the implementation of any such interventions. The present service evaluation aimed to evaluate an abbreviated version (sole session) of a previously tested psychoeducation intervention (three sessions) that targets less adaptive illness beliefs (n = 17). Pre–post effect sizes reveal that all of the carers’ illness beliefs changed in the desired direction, with four out of the 10 illness beliefs associated with large to moderate improvements. When compared with the outcomes obtained in our evaluation of the more intensive, three-session version of the intervention, the between-group effects largely favoured the three-session version but were mostly small. Moderate to large effects in favour of the three-session version were found for two of the 10 illness beliefs. These findings support the further investigation of the sole session psychoeducation intervention as part of a randomised controlled trial.

Adherence to medication is essential for achieving good outcomes for patients with bipolar affective disorder. This study tested whether treatment and illness beliefs are important predictors of adherence to medication. Results indicate that beliefs are predictive, and may be a suitable target for modification in efforts to change behaviour.

We examined beliefs about depression in patients and their partners and explored the impact of beliefs on perceptions of marital functioning, level of distress and caregiving in partners, and clinical outcome of major depression. Fifteen patients meeting criteria for major depressive disorder and their co-habiting spouses were interviewed at baseline using the Reasons for Depression Questionnaire (Addis, Truax and Jacobson, 1995) and measures of symptom severity, distress, caregiver consequences and marital satisfaction. Outcome was assessed at 6 months. Identifying biological reasons for depression was significantly associated with patient severity of depression and with caregiver burden. Caregiver distress was significantly associated with endorsement of interpersonal reasons for depression. Concordance in reason giving between patients and partners was significantly associated with a good outcome. This is the first study to show that beliefs about depression held by patients and their partners may have an impact on the clinical outcome of major depression.