From Treatment as Usual to Evidence - Based Treatments in Adolescent Psychiatry: Re-structuring the Care with Time-limited, Disorder-specific therapies in Helsinki University Hospital
Poster C72, Wednesday, October%2010, 11:30%20am%20-%201:00%20pm, Essex%20Ballroom
Niklas Granö1, Klaus Ranta1; 1Helsinki University Hospital, Department of Adolescent Psychiatry, Finland
Background: Availability of evidence-based treatments, developmentally designed for specific mental health disorders in adolescents, has increased remarkably. However, in public psychiatric services, re-structuring the content of treatment according to evidence-based medicine, is a challenge due to organizational and professional-cultural barriers and a long tradition of providing treatment as usual. Increased number of referrals to Helsinki University Hospital’s (HUH) Adolescent Psychiatry leads to greater need of fast, intensive, effective, time-limited, evidence-based treatments in the future to avoid the chronic development of illness. Methods: In HUH, Department of Adolescent Psychiatry (adolescents at 13-17 years of age) with a catchment area of ca. 1.2 million inhabitants, the distribution and prevalence of psychiatric disorders was first analyzed. A significant percentage of personnel was trained to provide evidence –based, time limited, disorder-specific therapies to main disorder categories. The referral system within department was re-organized to allow a quick transfer for the adolescents after their clinical assessment at first admission to disorder specific teams. Results: To date in HUH, choices for evidence-based, time limited, focused treatments cover therapy models for anxiety (CBT, brief psychodynamic therapy), depression (CBT, IPT-A, brief psychodynamic therapy), social phobia (group CBT), psychosis risk (CBT), trauma (trauma-focused CBT), substance abuse (MDFT), ADHD and Asperger (Mymind) and emotion regulation/suicidality (DBT). Conclusions: After recent implementation of treatment-models, next step is to conduct scientific research of the effectivity of treatments to evaluate the usefulness of models in local clinical practice.
Topic Area: Service System Development and Reform