Community-Based Outreach Treatment for Addictions and Concomitant Disorders: Time for a Change of Paradigm

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About this Research Topic

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Background

It is well known, that a part of patients with addictions and concomitant disorders do not use traditional care offers. This shows that these outpatient programs often do not manage to address the needs of this group of high need users.

Different models of community treatment have been developed in the last decades. In addiction medicine this type of outreach treatment mainly aims at risk reduction such as overdose and infectious diseases (hep C, HIV etc.) typically providing information and linkage to other health care providers. In spite of the importance of risk reduction treatments, other needs such as social inclusion were not adequately addressed.

Recently newer models of community-based outreach treatment have developed in psychiatry using recovery orientated practices in coherence with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Recovery orientated practices should focus on increasing strengths, encourage patients’ autonomy and encourage patients to participate in community (inclusion). These practices need strong collaborations with other community stakeholders. Important points such as stable accommodation and possible work options must be addressed.

Examples such as “housing first” and “supported employment” have shown successful implementation of recovery orientated community treatment for patients with mental health problems.

There are few studies examining specific community-based outreach treatment models for patients with addictions and concomitant disorders, especially using recovery oriented practices. Often in studies done on a larger population of psychiatric patients, patients with addictions are either excluded or not specifically assessed.

In the light of the new developments in mental health care community-based outreach treatment models for people with addictive and concomitant disorders have to be redefined. Newer models of addiction treatment are moving from mainly prevention and risk reduction based models to community treatment models focusing on inclusion and recovery.

This research topic intends to present and discuss examples of recovery orientated models for patients with addictions and concomitant disorders.

In this research topic we will focus on

- Specific factors of treatment influencing efficacy
- Evaluation of different treatment models
- Challenges involved implementing treatment programs
- Community health service organization
- Recovery oriented community treatment
- Treatment offers for non-SUD addiction
- Evaluation of needs
- Reduction social consequences of severe mental disorders

We hope to have contributors and readers from a wide array of disciplines such as psychiatry, public health, psychology, social sciences etc.

Research Topic Research topic image

Keywords: Community-based outreach treatment, Recovery orientated practices, Inclusion, Addictive disorders

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