An advocacy model for people with long-term psychiatric disabilities

Traditional rights protection and advocacy systems in the mental health field have focused primarily on the use of legal processes to protect patients in inpatient settings. This paper describes a study of an advocacy model designed to help frequent users of mental health services adjust more successfully to community living. Clients who were offered advocacy services related to self-identified problems and needs were compared with a control group who were not offered the services. During the study period clients who received the advocacy services were hospitalized significantly fewer days than the control group with no increase in psychiatric symptoms, but the differences between the two groups disappeared after advocacy services were terminated. The authors compare the advocacy intervention to case management and discuss the potential role of advocacy services in mental health systems.