Background:

Functional improvement in bipolar and schizophrenic patients is one of the main aims of treatment. Nevertheless, there is no evidence about the effect of socio-occupational intervention within a multimodal intervention (MI) programme.

Objective:

To describe the socio-occupational profile and to evaluate the functional effect of a MI in bipolar I and schizophrenic patients.

Methods:

A prospective, longitudinal, therapeutic-comparative study was performed including 302 subjects (104 schizophrenic and 198 Bipolar Disorder I [BDI] patients), who were randomised into two groups, multimodal (psychiatry, psychology, medicine, occupational therapy, neuropsychology, and family therapy), or traditional intervention (psychiatry and medicine only). Several scales were applied to assess assertiveness, free time management, social abilities, general anxiety, self-care and performance in home, work and community tasks.

Results:

After performing the longitudinal analysis, it was shown that the multimodal intervention was more effective than traditional intervention in general anxiety scores (P=.026) and development in home tasks (P=.03) in schizophrenic patients. No statistical differences were found in bipolar patients. The other variables showed improvement, however, their effect was similar in both intervention groups.

Conclusions:

Our study identified functional improvement in home tasks in schizophrenic patients after receiving multimodal intervention. Other variables also showed improvement for both interventions groups. Future studies, applying longer rehabilitation programs and other ecological strategies should be performed to identify the most effective interventions.

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