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The Gloucester assertive community treatment team: A description and comparison with other services
Nathan Gregory1, Rob Macpherson2
1Gloucester Assertive Community Treatment Team,Gloucestershire Partnership NHS Trust,Burleigh House,Nettleton Road,Gloucester GL1 0JH.
Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) in the UK shows high fidelity but is linked to frequent hospital admissions. ACT services aim to improve engagement and social functioning, not replace hospital care.
Area of Science:
- Psychiatry
- Mental Health Services
- Community Psychiatry
Background:
- Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is a global model for severely mentally ill individuals.
- UK studies show mixed outcomes and concerns about ACT fidelity.
- This study examines an established ACT team in Gloucester City.
Purpose of the Study:
- Assess the fidelity of a Gloucester-based ACT team.
- Describe service user demographics and illness profiles.
- Compare findings with other UK ACT studies.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Dartmouth Assertive Community Treatment Scale for fidelity assessment.
- Collected demographic and illness data from 79 service users.
- Analyzed data to characterize the service and its users.
Main Results:
- Gloucester ACT users were older and more disabled than in classic ACT studies.
- The team demonstrated high fidelity to the original ACT model.
- Despite high fidelity, the team was associated with high inpatient treatment rates.
Conclusions:
- High-fidelity ACT services may correlate with high admission rates.
- ACT's primary goals are engagement and social functioning, not hospital avoidance.
- Findings enable service benchmarking and development; consistent fidelity reporting is crucial for research comparison.
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