Independent housing and support for people with severe mental illness: systematic review

To systematically explore the outcomes of Independent Housing and Support (IHS) for people with severe mental disorders when compared to other residential settings.

Systematic review of Randomised and Non-Randomised Controlled Trials of publications that analyse the outcomes of living in independent settings versus institutionalised accommodation. Risk of bias assessment was adapted from the Cochrane Collaboration's ACROBAT-Tool. The analysis was conducted separately for publications with homeless and non-homeless people.

Twenty-four publications from studies with homeless people and eight publications from studies with non-homeless people were included. Risk of bias was much lower in studies with the homeless. No RCT was found in the sample of publications with the non-homeless. Overall, results from Independent Housing and Support-settings are not inferior to results from institutionalised settings.

The results indicate that Independent Housing and Support-settings provide at least similar outcomes than residential care. We propose that clients' preferences should determine the choice of housing setting.