Implementation of treatment guidelines for specialist mental health care

Abstract

A huge gap exists between the production of evidence and its take-up in clinical practice settings. To fill this gap, treatment guidelines, based on explicit assessments of the evidence base, are commonly employed in several fields of medicine, including schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. It remains unclear, however, whether treatment guidelines have any impact on provider performance and patient outcomes, and how implementation should be conducted to maximise benefit.

European Psychiatric Association (EPA) guidance on quality assurance in mental healthcare

“…A Cochrane review recently investigated whether there was evidence that schizophrenia guidelines had any impact on provider performance or patient outcomes [5]. Only five studies were found and due to methodological heterogeneity, a meta-analysis was only possible for the question for antipsychotic drug therapy.…”

“…The European Psychiatric Association considers (Grade of recommendation: A) that quality assurance in mental healthcare can be fostered by using established national guidelines and quality indicators for the diagnosis and treatment of specific mental disorders (meso-level; Section 3.5; evidence level I; [5,33,95,109]). …”