community care

COMMUNITY CARE (TREATMENT OF SCHIZOPHRENIA)

There has been a move away from hospitalisation and towards caring for, and treating, patients with schizophrenia in the community. This is due to:

• Wing and Brown found that psychiatric hospitals are humans and increase negative symptoms in schizophrenics.
• The discovery of neuroleptic drugs allowed psychiatrists to expand outpatient day care for schizophrenia.

The current approach to community care emphasises interventions between psychotic episodes to maintain the benefits of treatment and prevent relapse. Case management is considered to be an essential part of current community care models. This is…