Effectiveness of an assertive community treatment program for patients with severe mental disorder

Abstract

The Program for Assertive Community Treatment in Albacete (Spain) is a multidisciplinary team effort directed at the care for patients with severe mental disorders. The aim of this work is to study its effectiveness in reducing hospital admissions and emergency care. Two pre-post tests were conducted, one at 12 months (N = 55) and the other at 36 months (N = 38). The differences found were significant in all cases. In the 12 months’ study the number of admissions reduced from 83 to 28; the number of admitted days decreased from 1.494 to 252; and the number of emergencies dropped from 66 to 12. In the 36 months’ study the results were similar, with a medium to large effect size in all cases. The number of patients admitted also dropped 64% and 43.33% respectively. The program, which is applied in a context of real life research, has shown to be effective.