You become responsible for their safety and they lose touch with the how to manage thier own difficulties. In accordance with a new study published in The Lancet Psychiatry which looks at suicide rates in different mental health settings, john McGowan does not work for. Own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above. Suicides among mental health patients under home treatment are double the general number of suicides in ‘in patient’ units. Perhaps the lessons from The Lancet paper are more nuanced, while it could merit a rethink about the relative merits of hospital.
Did you know that the suicide statistics -14·6 per 10000 episodes in CRHTs compared to 8·8 per 10000 in hospital -are awkward for advocates of more community based care.
No one is looking at the other occasions where people were sent out of hospital and didn’t die.
This is also with the benefit of hindsight. As someone who has spent a perfect portion of my working life in mental health wards I’d like to think it is a simplistic view. While there’re some good initiatives about, for the most part there’re also downsides to in patient care similar to dislocation, a potentially frightening environment and the stigma of the loony bin, people sometimes need hospital. Interestingly, the study found that a high proportion of the people who killed themselves while under care of CRHTs were quite isolated. So this might be reflective of care decisions made inappropriately, rather than an example of CRHTs being a bad option. The question is. Sending people out of hospital without supports around them is irresponsible -it’s a ‘no brainer’ is not it?
At first this looks like another round in a longrunning conversation about the privileges of community against hospital care. Is the former simply a money saving gambit when we are can’t predict risk even close to perfectly. Besides, the reality is that there will always be suicides in mental health services. Risks remain high, while mostly there’s always room for improvement. Make sure you write a comment about it in the comment box. Perhaps they shouldn’t try.
Mental health services go homeward, So if you can’t take even positive risks. Authors compared suicide rates in traditional acute mental health wards in England to the more recently established Cr Resolution and Home Treatment teams, or CRHTs.