Psychiatric rehabilitation: efficacy of four models

This paper is a critical review of four major rehabilitation programs: assertive community treatment, case management, vocational rehabilitation, and educational rehabilitation. Reported outcomes are reviewed in the context of study design, service characteristics, client characteristics, and operationalization of outcomes. Findings from the four programs are compared with one another. The authors concluded that clients are able to learn most of the skills taught, independently of the rehabilitation model. Furthermore, skills learned in one life domain generalized to a moderate extent to other areas. The four rehabilitation programs had varied effects on the outcome variables, and part of the variability in the findings appears to be related to client characteristics. Limitations of the studies reviewed are identified and a set of recommendations was suggested for the future practice of research into psychiatric rehabilitation.