Community Service Models for Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a chronic relapsing and remitting mental illness with lifetime prevalence between 0.40 to 1.4 percent. Most people with schizophrenia are treated in psychiatric units of local general hospitals for short periods of time when acutely ill. With the worldwide trend toward closure of asylums and institutions in the 1950s, there has been an increasing focus on treatment in the community. Community mental health teams (CMHT) are the kernel of community treatment. Although their composition and modus operandi differ according to patient need, all models claim superiority over outcomes of long inpatient stay. Case management, assertive outreach, and crisis resolution sometimes compete for resources. What is the evidence for their efficacy? What is the right mix of their use? As we discuss these, we propose that there may be room for the application of established industry models of service delivery, such as Just-in-Time (JIT), in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia.