Individual Placement and Support Provides Modest Advantages in First Six Months
Poster A127, Thursday, October 20, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Le Baron
David H. Erickson1,2, David. G. T. Whitehurst3,4; 1Fraser Health, 2University of British Columbia,, 3Simon Fraser University, 4Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute
Purpose: Although the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) has achieved ‘gold standard’ status for enhancing employment among older clients in the later stages of mental illness, the nature and timing of its contributions to younger clients in the early stages of illness is less understood. This randomized controlled trial assesses the effectiveness of the IPS model of employment support in a representative sample of early-psychosis clients. Methods: We are recruiting 100 clients from the Fraser Health Early Psychosis program; 50 clients will receive one year of IPS support and 50 will receive ‘treatment as usual’ (TAU). A variety of employment, clinical, and service-use outcomes are being assessed at 6- and 12-months. This presentation describes interim analyses of early employment outcomes for the first 30 clients. Results: By 6 months, the majority of clients in both the IPS and TAU groups have achieved employment (80% and 73%, respectively); the IPS group may have an advantage in terms of days worked (30 vs 23, p=n.s.). Conclusions: When EPI clients are ready to look for work, most are successful with or without IPS. Early advantages in terms of keeping work may be attributed to IPS, which may be more apparent at 12 months or later. Together, the early results from these young EPI clients suggest that a continuous measure of employment outcome, e.g. days worked, may be more useful than the traditional dichotomous outcome of ‘any competitive employment’, which was developed for older clients.
Topic Area: Psychosocial Interventions