"Since I have my case manager, I am back to life" case management in Croatia

The authors present a case report of a patient who was treated by a case manager, a member of a Croatian Community Mental Health (CMH) Team, following the recommendations of WHO 2004 as well as the IRIS guidelines and the Basic Standards for Management of Patients with Serious Mental Illness in the Community (Agius 2005) and using the elements of Clinical case management (Muser 1998), Assertive community treatment model (Burns 1995, Scott 1995, Wolfsan 1990), the personal strength model (Rapp 1988) and Rehabilitation model (Anthony 1993). In order to emphasize the importance of the therapist-patient relationship in the treatment of chronic schizophrenic patients (Ivezic 2001) and creating the group atmosphere a Croatian model of case management is created where the patient's needs and risks are assessed by a multidisciplinary team which also conducts the recommended psychosocial interventions plan. The majority of interventions are conducted in groups. The case manager develops a confident relationship with a patient, nourishes the positive transference and aids the delivery of the treatment. The main goals of the interventions are empowerment of the patient, improvement of his abilities and decreasing of disabilities. The case manager also carries out a full assessment of the needs of the patient's family so that the family or carers are also included in the treatment or support if necessary (Gruber 2006). A case report of a patient and the work of her case manager as well as the case manager's diary (Gruber 2007) and the Croatian model of case management is presented in this article.