Social treatment for Schizophrenia & Evaluation Flashcards
What is the social treatment for Schizophrenia?
Care in the community
What did care in the community replace?
It replaced taking care of mentally ill people (such as those with schizophrenia) in asylums and hospitals by making provisions within the community.
What do the provisions include?
Such provisions include home care, day centres, crisis intervention centres, and counselling drop in centres’, help lines, halfway houses and respite help.
What is care in the community designed to encourage?
Care in the community is designed to encourage integration which will helps patients to adjust to the norms of the wider community. It is also designed to reduce isolation and societies understanding of mental health problems.
What does care in the community allow for mentally ill people?
Community care also allows the person to lead a varied life and helps people stay with their family, which gives them more of an emotional support than a hospital.
Evaluate in terms of mental institutions.
It allowed the state to close down many mental institutions which were apparently offering second rate care. However, many saw the closure as an attempt to save money, disregarding the patients best interests.
Evaluate in terms of improvements.
There is evidence that it is effective in improving the quality of life for many patients. Most patients prefer community care to being in hospital and studies have demonstrated that schizophrenic patients receiving care in the community demonstrate less symptoms than those hospitalised.
What evidence supports the social treatment? (2001)
Bond et al (2001) analysed 25 studies that looked at the effectiveness of ACT and concluded that compared with standard community care ACT is highly effective because it engaged patients, prevented re-hospitalisation and increased housing stability supporting the use of care in the community.
Evaluate in terms of funding.
A main weakness is that it is often under funded and private companies are often used for home care sometimes leading to high staff turnover but relationships between the client and career are essential for such vulnerable people.
Evaluate in terms of effectiveness.
A weakness is that it can let down many seriously ill schizophrenic patients who need the regime of the hospital to help them to take the drugs. Furthermore there are many cases where people with schizophrenia have harmed themselves and others because they had not been hospitalised when recommended to.
