Scales to assess the emphasis of psychiatric hospital treatment

Studying inpatient treatment practices in schizophrenia: an integrated methodology

A multi-phase research project examining current inpatient psychiatric practices and the relationships between different treatments and patient outcomes is described. The study sample includes Medicaid patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who have been treated in inpatient units of general hospitals in New York State. The research is focused at the heart of the debate concerning the appropriate role of inpatient psychiatric care within a balanced system of mental health services. Addressed are the conceptual issues that guided the project, research strategies, instrument development, measures used and the preliminary findings that informed successive phases. Design issues are reviewed in light of the conceptual and pragmatic decisions made with a multiple site design. A compelling argument is made about the need for a long-term treatment orientation that prepares patients for what lies ahead and that assures communication and continuity between inpatient and outpatient care.

Exploration and support in psychotherapeutic environments for psychotic patients

Clinical experience and previous investigations suggest that insight-oriented milieu therapy with psychotic patients presupposes a specific balance of explorative and supportive factors in the milieu. Explorative and supportive factors were translated here to two optimal ward atmosphere profiles using the subscales in the Community-oriented Programs Environment Scale (COPES) as profile variables. Three Swedish therapeutic communities for psychotic patients were then studied by means of COPES. The study showed distinct patterns in these units regarding deviations from the optimal profiles, differences in the balance between the explorative and supportive factors, divergences between explicit treatment philosophy and the perceived ward atmosphere, and differences between patient and staff perceptions of the ward atmosphere. These patterns followed a continuum from a self-governing, nonhierarchical and nonmedical organization to a hierarchical unit that is an integral part of the medical care organization. The conclusion was that a beneficial psychotherapeutic environment requires consistency in the applied treatment model, including an organization and setting that corresponds to the explicit treatment philosophy, well mirrored in the patients' perceptions.

Difficult patients in extended psychiatric hospitalization: a research perspective on the patient, staff and team

A series of publications has emerged from a comprehensive research project on difficulties in extended psychiatric hospital treatment, each of which describes factors that may influence difficulty: staff perceptions, difficult patient profiles, countertransference, intrapsychic features, organic brain impairment, problematic areas of treatment. This paper is intended to provide an overview and clinical integration of those diverse findings and an application of the findings to clinical conceptualization. The research supplements existing knowledge about treatment difficulty and countertransference in dyads by providing information about how such phenomena are influenced by clinical teams, by professional roles or disciplines, and by the treatment delivery system. Finally, I will describe future issues, questions and research efforts that are generated by these findings.