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Continuity of care in serious mental illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Joy Abbati  and
Greg Oles
Joy Abbati
Affiliation:
Tegfan Day Hospital, Whitchurch Hospital
Greg Oles
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Psychology, Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff CF4 7XB
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It has been claimed (Abbati et al, 1987) that patients benefit from continuity of professional involvement sustained over a long period. Schizophrenia sufferers in particular find it harder than non-sufferers to articulate their difficulties and concerns, and may adjust poorly to change, only building up trust in professionals over an extended period. In their turn, professionals need time to get to know such individuals and to recognise ‘early signs’ (Birchwood et al, 1989) of possible relapse. Management of potential decompensation involves a knowledge of how the individual has responded to changes in medication in the past and what psychosocial factors may be relevant. Working with such patients refines the clinician's skills in interacting with them, obtaining their compliance with a particular regime, and pre-empting potential problems. Without this background of knowledge and experience, the management of sufferers may be crude with adverse results for the patient.

Type
Original articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , March 1993 , pp. 140 - 141
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

References

Abbati, J., Hailwood, R. & Tanaghow, A. (1987) Family treatment for schizophrenia – the work of S.T.E.P. in Cardiff. British Journal of Clinical and Social Psychiatry, 5, 97–101.Google Scholar
Birchwood, M., Smith, J. MacMillan, F., Hogg, B. et al, (1989) Predicting relapse in schizophrenia: The development and implementation of an early signs monitoring system using patients and families as observers, a preliminary investigation. Psychological Medicine, 19, 649–656.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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