Psychiatric patients back care in community

(First Edition)

PSYCHIATRIC patients - and their relations - prefer community treatment to hospital care, a new survey reports, despite fears that home-based treatment puts too much burden on the family, writes Celia Hall.

Researchers in Birmingham decided to compare the effects of both systems in neighbouring suburbs. In Sparkbrook, care is based around a 'walk-in' centre with six in-patient beds. ; in Small Heath, care is in a 14 bed unit in a psychiatric hospital.

The findings have been attributed to the greater contact with doctors and nurses experienced by the patients and families in Sparkbrook. Dr Christine Dean, of Birmingham University's department of psychiatry, says in tomorrow's British Medical Journal that the community service was just as effective as the hospital.

More of the 69 Sparkbrook patients than the 55 Small Heath patients were still in touch with a psychiatrist or community nurse a year after treatment began. Sparkbrook families had 6.1 meetings with a psychiatric nurse compared with 2.7 for the Small Health families in the first month.

British and French psychiatrists have different habits when it comes to diagnosing schizophrenia. Research in the BMJ says that 92 British and 69 French psychiatrists showed 'substantial differences' when tested on 38 statements about cause, diagnosis and management of schizophrenia.