Assertive Community Treatment

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Assertive Community Treatment Outside the USA
This paper is a review of four studies outside of the USA. The first study is from the Netherlands by Sytema, Wunderink, Bloemers, Roorda, and Wiersma (2007). The second study is from Japan by Nishio, et al (2012). The third study was done in South Africa by Botha, Keon, Joska, Hering, and Oosthuizen (2010). The last study that will be examined for this paper is also from South Africa by Botha, Keon, Galal, Jordaan, and Niehaus (2014). These articles shows just how Assertive community treatment is implemented in other countries.
Sytema, et al. (2007) was a randomized study done to compare the effectiveness of ACT with standard community care for individuals with severe mental illness in the Netherlands.
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This study was done in one of South Africa’s only three psychiatric hospitals in Cape Town, South Africa. There were 60 participants in this study who were diagnosed with schizophrenia or Schizo affective disorder. The age ranges was between 18- 59. The participants were also high frequent users of psychiatric hospital services. The ACT team had a case load of 34 participants and the standard community care had a case load of 26 participants. On the ACT team one participant died, one was lost to contact, and 3 were referred to long care facility before Botha et al (2010) implemented a modified ACT program to their study. The ACT program was modified so that it can be cost effective and realistic for African setting Botha et al (2007) p.2. The standard community care team also had one participant who died, 2 were lost to contact, and two were referred to long term care facility before discharge. Once the participants were discharged they were followed for a year. Botha et al. (2010) found that ACT services reduced readmission rates and symptoms. It improved social and occupational functioning. They also found that there was improvement in quality of life and a drop in rates of …show more content…
They wanted to see if the modified ACT services would progress successfully in reducing hospitalizations while in an under-resource setting. This study was a continuation of the third study mentioned above. The ACT team expanded and it consisted of a medical officer, a social worker, three psychiatric nurses, and a psychiatrist. Botha et al (2014) added 5 additional participants to the study for a total of 65 participants. The participants were between the ages of 18- 59 years old. They had to have been diagnosed with Schizophrenia or Schizo affective disorder, and a high frequency user of the psychiatric hospital services (Botha et al, 2014. p.