Community‐based Rehabilitation for People With Disabilities in Low‐ and Middle‐income Countries: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The Campbell Collaboration was founded on the principle that systematic reviews on the effects of interventions will inform and help improve policy and services. Campbell offers editorial and methodological support to review authors throughout the process of producing a systematic review. A number of Campbell's editors, librarians, methodologists and external peer reviewers contribute. Plain language summaryInterventions to reduce homelessness and improve housing stability are effectiveThere are large numbers of homeless people around the world. Interventions to address homelessness seem to be effective, though better quality evidence is required. What is this review about?There are large numbers of homeless people around the world. Recent estimates are over 500,000 people in the USA, 100,000 in Australia and 30,000 in Sweden. Efforts to combat homelessness have been made on national levels as well as at local government levels.This review assesses the effectiveness of interventions combining housing and case management as a means to reduce homelessness and increase residential stability for individuals who are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless. What is the aim of this review?This Campbell systematic review examines the effectiveness of interventions to reduce homelessness and increase residential stability for individuals who are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless. Forty-three studies were included in the review, 37 of which are from the USA. What studies are included?Included studies were randomized controlled trials of interventions for individuals who were already, or at-risk of becoming, homeless, and which measured impact on homelessness or housing stability with follow-up of at least one year.A total of 43 studies were included. The majority of the studies (37) were conducted in the United States, with three from the United Kingdom and one each from Australia, Canada, and Denmark. 6The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org What are the main findings of this review?Included interventions perform better than the usual services at reducing homelessness or improving housing stability in all comparisons. These interventions are: These interventions seem to have similar beneficial effects, so it is unclear which of these is best with respect to reducing homelessness and increasing housing stability. What do the findings of this review mean?A range of housing programs and case management interventions appear to reduce homelessness and improve housing stability, compared to usual services.However, there is uncertainty in this finding as most the studies have risk of bias due to poor reporting, lack of blinding, or poor randomization or allocation concealment of participants. In addition to the general need for better conducted and reported studies, there are specific gaps in the research with respect to: 1) disadvantaged youth; 2) abstinence-contingent housing with case management or day treatment; 3) non-abstinence contingent housing comparing group vs independent living; 4) Hous...

Education of children and young people with autistic spectrum disorders in Egypt

“…In the UK, the Autism Act endorses this (Autism Act, UK, 2009;Gobrial, 2012;UN, 2006). This is consistent with the literature concerning the disability services in the Arab world and low-to middle-income countries (Hadidi & Al Khateeb, 2015;Iemmi et al, 2015;McKenzie & McConkey, 2015).…”

Edawu: a journey from in-patient rehabilitation to community-based treatment and rehabilitation in Nigeria

“…There is a federal medical centre in the state capital, Makurdi, which has the geo graphically closest governmentfunded psychiatric beds. There are no community residential facili ties in the local area funded by the government, yet communitybased rehabilitation (CBR) is the strategy endorsed by the World Health Organiza tion (WHO) and other international bodies to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities, particularly in low and middleincome countries (LMICs) (Iemmi et al, 2015).…”

Training Needs of Community-based Rehabilitation Workers for the Effective Implementation of CBR Programmes

“…A number of articles emphasise the need for more rigorous evaluation of the content, methods, and impact of training on service provision; however, the same studies provide limited information on their methods of evaluation or how further evaluation should be conducted (Rule et al, 2006;Finkenflügel and Rule, 2008;Narayan and Reddy, 2008;Shamrock, 2009;Rule, 2013;Raj and Thomas, 2015). Several other reviews on the conceptualisation, characteristics, and impact of CBR consistently report concerns with the methodological quality of evaluation in CBR (Cleaver & Nixon, 2014;Iemmi et al, 2016;M'kumbuzi and Myezwa, 2016). However, the complexity and diversity of CBR creates challenges in monitoring and evaluation of training, including cost, limited capacity and time, and multiple methodological approaches (Cornielje et al, 2008;Lukersmith et al, 2013;Weber et al, 2016).…”