BACKGROUND: Trials in community psychiatry must balance rigour with generalisability. The UK700 trial failed to find a significant effect on hospitalisation, but its sample population contained significant heterogeneity of exposure to case management in the two groups. AIMS: To test whether patients successfully exposed to a minimum of 12 months' intensive case management over the 2-year follow-up period achieved reduced hospitalisation. METHOD: Of 679 participants with hospitalisation data, 84 were identified as having < 12 months' exposure owing to prolonged hospitalisation, imprisonment or a combination of the two. These patients were excluded and outcomes tested for the remaining 595 patients. RESULTS: Overall reduced case-load size did not reduce hospitalisation or treatment costs over 2 years despite elimination of outliers. Age, previous hospitalisation and source of recruitment to the study all correlated with outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Case-load reduction is not in itself enough to reduce the need for hospital care in psychosis. Baseline patient characteristics (in particular length of previous hospitalisation and recruitment from in-patient care) have a significant influence and should be allowed for in power calculations. Identifying the optimal clinical profile for patients likely to benefit from intensive case management remains a pressing need for further studies.
RCT Entities:
BACKGROUND: Trials in community psychiatry must balance rigour with generalisability. The UK700 trial failed to find a significant effect on hospitalisation, but its sample population contained significant heterogeneity of exposure to case management in the two groups. AIMS: To test whether patients successfully exposed to a minimum of 12 months' intensive case management over the 2-year follow-up period achieved reduced hospitalisation. METHOD: Of 679 participants with hospitalisation data, 84 were identified as having < 12 months' exposure owing to prolonged hospitalisation, imprisonment or a combination of the two. These patients were excluded and outcomes tested for the remaining 595 patients. RESULTS: Overall reduced case-load size did not reduce hospitalisation or treatment costs over 2 years despite elimination of outliers. Age, previous hospitalisation and source of recruitment to the study all correlated with outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Case-load reduction is not in itself enough to reduce the need for hospital care in psychosis. Baseline patient characteristics (in particular length of previous hospitalisation and recruitment from in-patient care) have a significant influence and should be allowed for in power calculations. Identifying the optimal clinical profile for patients likely to benefit from intensive case management remains a pressing need for further studies.
Authors: Andrea C Tricco; Jesmin Antony; Noah M Ivers; Huda M Ashoor; Paul A Khan; Erik Blondal; Marco Ghassemi; Heather MacDonald; Maggie H Chen; Lianne Kark Ezer; Sharon E Straus Journal: CMAJ Date: 2014-09-15 Impact factor: 8.262
Authors: G M Goodwin; P M Haddad; I N Ferrier; J K Aronson; Trh Barnes; A Cipriani; D R Coghill; S Fazel; J R Geddes; H Grunze; E A Holmes; O Howes; S Hudson; N Hunt; I Jones; I C Macmillan; H McAllister-Williams; D R Miklowitz; R Morriss; M Munafò; C Paton; B J Saharkian; Kea Saunders; Jma Sinclair; D Taylor; E Vieta; A H Young Journal: J Psychopharmacol Date: 2016-03-15 Impact factor: 4.153