ABSTRACT
Introduction: Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) was introduced in the 1970s as a comprehensive and assertive approach to community-based case management of patients with chronic and serious mental illness. Launched in Singapore in 2003, the Assertive Community Management (ACM) was modelled after the ACT, but with the main difference of 24 hour availability for the latter only. In line with the move towards de-institutionalisation of psychiatric patients, ACM was introduced to provide a mobile community-based multidisciplinary team approach to manage patients with severe chronic psychiatric illness. This article aims to evaluate and provide an update on this service programme in Singapore following an earlier study by Fam Johnson in 2007.
Materials and Methods: A naturalistic and retrospective study was conducted. One hundred and fi fty-fi ve patients recruited into ACM from 1 September 2008 to 1 September 2009 and had completed 1 year of ACM were included in our study. Outcomes were defi ned as number of admissions (NOA) and length of stay (LOS) one year before and one year following induction into the programme. Baseline socio-demographic factors were also investigated to see if they predicted outcome with ACM. Results: The mean NOA was 1.9 pre-ACM and 0.6 post-ACM, with mean reduction in NOA of 1.3 (P <0.01). The mean LOS was 72.2 days pre-ACM and 17.1 days post ACM, mean reduction in LOS 55.1 days (P <0.01). In addition, it was found that gender, diagnoses and ethnicity were not predictive of the outcome measures of NOA or LOS. Conclusion: ACM in Singapore had been well established since its inception and continued to show effectiveness in reducing inpatient hospitalisation among the chronically mentally ill.In Asia, various community programmes have been adopted and studied in several countries in an effort to promote de-institutionalisation, community psychiatric services and reduce relapses or readmission rates. In Manila, Philippines, the National Mental Hospital has successfully reduced hospitalisation by 70% after introducing the Acute Crisis Intervention Services (ACIS), which involved a period of family intervention and intensive treatment before further decisions were made for a patient to be
admitted. Indeed, psychoeducation and training for caregivers of psychiatric patients have been shown to have significant impact on the success of treatment of patients
in the community setting.
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