Adventure therapy for early psychosis: 3-year results
Poster C33, Wednesday, October%2010, 11:30%20am%20-%201:00%20pm, Essex%20Ballroom
Clairélaine Ouellet-Plamondon1,2, Camille Girard3, Amal Abdel-Baki1,2; 1Université de Montréal, 2Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, 3Université du Québec à Montréal
Purpose: Early intervention services (EIS) improve early psychosis outcome however a significant number of persons do not engage or respond to usual interventions and do not achieve functional remission despite EIS. Adventure therapy (AT) offers an alternative approach to improve engagement and recovery. Methods: 26 participants of AT summer program (6 weekly preparatory 2 hours session + 4 days expedition) of 2 EIS. Participants and their clinicians completed scales measuring self-esteem, therapeutic alliance, self-efficacy, functioning, and substance use before, at the end and 6 months after the outdoor expedition. Qualitative interviews were also conducted and analysed to extract mediating factors leading to recovery. Results: 6 months after the expedition, slight improvements are observed on the different measures. The sense of achievement perceived by the participants seems a central aspect of the positive outcome. Conclusions: AT appears to be a complementary intervention which can be integrated in EIS and can benefit participants who do not respond to regular EIS interventions. Further research is warranted to understand the specific ingredients of AT that mediates its possible impacts and to compare it to other type of interventions.
Topic Area: Psychosocial Interventions