Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is an evidence-based practice that improves outcomes for people with severe mental illness who are most at-risk of psychiatric crisis and hospitalization and involvement in the criminal justice system.
How effective is assertive community treatment?
In randomized trials, assertive community treatment subjects demonstrated a 37% (95% CI=18%-55%) greater reduction in homelessness and a 26% (95% CI=7%-44%) greater improvement in psychiatric symptom severity compared with standard case management treatments.
What is the goal and benefit of assertive community treatment?
ACT strives to lessen or eliminate the debilitating symptoms of mental illness each individual client experiences and to minimize or prevent recurrent acute episodes of the illness, to meet basic needs and enhance quality of life, to improve functioning in adult social and employment roles, to enhance an individual's ...
What are the 3 key features of assertive community treatment?
ACT is characterized by (1) low client to staff ratios (no more than 10 clients per staff member); (2) providing services in the community; (3) shared caseloads among team members; (4) 24-hour availability of the team, (5) direct provision of all services by the team rather than referral; and (6) time-unlimited ...
What is assertive community treatment used for?
Assertive community treatment (ACT) is a form of community-based mental health care for individuals experiencing serious mental illness that interferes with their ability to live in the community, attend appointments with professionals in clinics and hospitals, and manage mental health symptoms.
Is Assertive Community Treatment evidence based?
Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is an evidence-based practice that improves outcomes for people with severe mental illness who are most at-risk of psychiatric crisis and hospitalization and involvement in the criminal justice system.
What is the goal and benefit of Assertive Community Treatment Act )? Quizlet?
One primary goal and benefit of Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is: preventing rehospitalization. RATIONALE: A primary goal of ACT is working intensely with the patient in the community to prevent rehospitalization. The other options are not goals of ACT.
What is the key principle of community treatment?
The implementation of supervised community treatment and CTOs commenced in November 2008. The guiding principles of the CTO are to minimise the undesirable effects of mental disorder, maximise the safety and well-being of patients, promote their recovery and protect other people from harm.
What is assertive community case management model?
An Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team was established to work collaboratively and intensively with consumers to support them to live a fulfilling life in the community and reduce the number and length of hospital admissions.
When was Assertive Community Treatment created?
1970sOriginating at the county level in Wisconsin in the early 1970s, Assertive Community Treatment is one of the most influential mental health programs ever developed.
Which are functions of Assertive Community Treatment quizlet?
Assertive community treatment reduces inpatient service use, promotes continuity of outpatient care, and increases the stability of people with serious mental illness.
What is Assertive Community Treatment quizlet?
Assertive community treatment (ACT) programs provide many of the services that are necessary to stop the revolving door of repeated hospital admissions punctuated by unsuccessful attempts at community living.
How long was assertive community treatment?
In this study the experimental treatment was applied for 14 months. Subjects in the experimental program had less time in the hospital, more time in independent living situations, better employment records, increased life satisfaction, decreased symptoms, and improved treatment adherence. Family and community burden did not appear to increase (A1, A3, A4). Societal cost was found to be slightly lower in the experimental treatment when wages earned were considered monetary benefits and welfare support was considered a cost (B10, B11, B14 to B17). Thus, the innovative program showed both an economic advantage and a psychosocial advantage.
What is Act therapy?
ACT is an intensive community-based, integrated treatment approach for individuals with schizophrenia who have difficulty staying connected to standard outpatient treatment modalities ( e.g., attending psychopharmacology appointments , participating in therapy groups) and who are at high risk for relapse and psychiatric hospitalization .
What is the strongest and most coherent body of cost-effectiveness investigation in mental health?
Research on assertive community treatment (ACT) for persons with severe mental illness is the strongest and most coherent body of cost-effectiveness investigation in mental health.
How does Act work?
ACT services take place in the community, with staff members conducting frequent home visits, rather than insisting that clients come to the mental health clinic for appointments. A rule of thumb for client contact is that 80% or more of appointments take place in the home or other community setting ( Bond et al., 2001a ). This allows for in vivo progress: clinicians can more effectively help clients solve everyday problems, such as organizing their home or increasing medication adherence, in the natural environment than they can simply talking about the problems in an office. Compared to many mental health providers who deliver services exclusively during the 8-hour work day and then refer out to standard emergency services after business hours, ACT offers “rapid access” to client emergencies. Team members respond quickly to crises, even when they occur in the evenings or on weekends. As the goal of ACT is to reduce mental health crises and the necessity of hospitalizations, it has been suggested that ACT teams tend to be able to anticipate emergency situations proactively and therefore prevent the need for 24-hour coverage ( Witheridge, 1991 ).
What are the drawbacks of Act?
One potential drawback of ACT is its cost, given the intensity of the services provided to each client. However, whereas studies have found that ACT services do not tend to reduce clients’ use of outpatient services, the high overall ACT program costs are usually offset by the substantial reduction in hospitalization costs ( Latimer, 1999 ).
When was the Act program created?
The ACT program, developed in the 1970s as a response to the host of problems related to the deinstitutionalization process that began in the 1960s, takes a multidisciplinary, holistic approach to treatment (Stein & Santos, 1998).
Is Act a community based service?
Although ACT is a fairly high-cost community-based service, this increased cost is more than offset by the reduction in hospital utilization that is achieved.
What is assertive community treatment?
The simple definition of assertive community treatment is an intensive, integrated approach to community mental health service delivery. What this means is that mental health services are provided in a community setting (rather than a more restrictive residential or hospital setting) to people experiencing serious mental illness.
Where is active community treatment implemented?
ACT Locations. Assertive community treatment has been implemented in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. For example, specifically in the United States, ACT was implemented across the country by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
What is ACT in mental health?
Criticism of ACT. Assertive community treatment (ACT) is a form of community-based mental health care for individuals experiencing serious mental illness that interferes with their ability to live in the community, attend appointments with professionals in clinics and hospitals, and manage mental health symptoms.
Why is the Act model important?
Another benefit that the ACT model may also be helpful for reducing burnout among mental health professionals. Despite serving individuals with intensive needs, research has found that ACT case managers report less work pressure and greater job satisfaction. 4 The shared responsibility that comes from being part of a healthcare team, the abundance of peer support, and clear job roles are possible reasons why those who work in assertive community treatment are less prone to burnout.
What is the goal of Act?
The goal of ACT is to reduce this reliance on hospitals by providing round-the-clock services to the people who need it most. In this way, assertive community treatment ...
What is Act treatment?
ACT is designed to provide treatment that is not restrictive and accessible. The Assertive Community Treatment Association (ACTA) has developed a number of key principles that guide this form of treatment. These include:
What is a treatment plan centered around?
Your treatment plan will be centered around your own personal strengths, needs, and desires for the future
What is Act in the community?
ACT was the leading model of community mental health services developed during the latter half of the 20th century. It facilitated deinstitutionalization and enabled successful community reintegration for thousands of people with serious mental illness. The key principles of ACT – outreach, delivery of services in the community, holistic and integrated services, and continuity of care – continue to influence the structure of mental health services in profound ways over much of the world.
What are the two indices of fidelity in the Act model?
A meta-analysis evaluating the relationship between ACT fidelity and reduction of hospital use employed two broad indices measuring critical ingredients of the ACT model: staffing(low client-staff ratio, optimal team size, and inclusion of psychiatrist and nurse in the team ) and organization(e.g., ACT team provides care directly rather than brokering, daily team meeting, and 24-hour access) (13). Organization predicted significant reductions in hospital use, while staffing did not. Thus, this study provided empirical support for the organizational components of ACT, but cast doubt on the necessity of multidisciplinary staffing standards.
Is Act effective for psychiatric patients?
ACT was strongly effective and cost-effective for clients who returned repeatedly to psychiatric hospitals ; conversely, it was less effective and clearly not cost-effective for infrequently hospitalized clients (5).
Is Act suited to rural settings?
Other limits of ACT have been acknowledged. ACT is not well suited to rural settings, because sparsely-populated communities lack a critical mass of service users requiring intensive mental health services. To accommodate rural settings, a Dutch hybrid service model called flexible ACT (FACT) has embedded a short-term ACT team within a clinical treatment team, providing intensive services for clients who are in crisis, with easy transition to and from usual services (17). Other modified versions of ACT to support transitions and flexibility have been developed (e.g., (18)), but no clearly superior model has emerged.
Is Act effective in reducing hospital use?
Several reviews concluded that ACT was more effective than standard services in reducing hospital use and increasing community tenure (3), and numerous practice guidelines endorsed ACT as an evidence-based practice for the treatment of schizophrenia (4).
Is Act effective for schizophrenia?
Several reviews concluded that ACT was more effective than standard services in reducing hospital use and increasing community tenure (3), and numerous practice guidelines endorsed ACT as an evidence-based practice for the treatment of schizophrenia (4) . The impact of ACT on outcomes other than hospital use and community tenure was less clear, though some studies found improvements in stable housing, symptom management, and quality of life (3).
Is Act evidence based?
The principle of time-unlimited support – i.e., that clients should receive ACT indefinitely – is not evidence-based, recovery-oriented, practical, or cost-effective, and it has essentially been dropped and replaced with policies encouraging graduation (16). The multidisciplinary concept has gradually transformed to recognize that team members need to learn new competencies continuously as evidence-based practices emerge.
Definition of Act
- Our center provides technical assistance (consulting, training and fidelity evaluation) to behavioral healthcare organizations in Ohio and other states that are providing ACT services, plan to implement ACT services, and wish to integrate ACT with Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment (IDDT), the evidence-based practice for people with se…
History
Who Assertive Community Treatment Serves
Act Locations
Characteristics
Services Provided by Act
The Benefits
Criticism of Act