In the U.S., when a patient is in need of rigorous psychiatric care, the first step is hospitalization. However, elsewhere in the world, psychiatric home treatment is proposed as an alternative. Model programs in Canada and the United Kingdom are publicly administered by community health agencies or teaching hospitals. Home Treatment for Acute Mental Disorders provides a review of the literature on home care and describes working programs around the world. This timely volume reviews treatment plans for different disorders with case illustrations, explains the administration of a PHC program and offers guidelines to case workers. It will be of interest to psychiatrists and policy makers working on the issue of patient hospitalization.

Because of the increased focus on managed care there is a growing demand for alternatives to psychiatric hospital treatment. In Alternatives to the Hospital for Acute Psychiatric Care, a range of acute nonhospital treatment programs from the United states and abroad are described, including locked- and open-door, voluntary and involuntary, public and private, and nontraditional and strictly medical settings. Alternatives to the Hospital for Acute Psychiatric Care describes various cost-effective alternatives to psychiatric hospital care and provides specific details for mental health administrators to evaluate the usefulness and feasibility of the various models for their own mental health care setting.

The multimodal treatment of acute psychiatric illness is an integrated, systematic set of interventions stabilizing individuals with severe mental illness and helping them avoid the trauma of unnecessary psychiatric hospitalization. Focusing on patients suffering from schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, severe anxiety, and substance dependence, this volume provides individual practitioners and professional teams with the necessary tools for responding to crisis and delivering acute care, reinforcing lessons with real-world hospital case studies, exercises, and resources.

With decreases in lengths of hospital stay and increases in alternatives to inpatient treatments, the field of hospital psychiatry has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. As the first comprehensive guide to be published in more than a decade, the Textbook of Hospital Psychiatry is a compilation of the latest trends, issues, and developments in the field. The textbook, written by 70 national experts and clinical specialists, covers a wide range of clinical and administrative topics that are central to today's practice of hospital psychiatry. This is the only textbook on the market today that provides information for psychiatric hospital clinicians and administrators in a single all-inclusive volume. It covers information not generally available in other textbooks and medical journals, touching on a variety of cutting-edge issues, such as safety improvement, use of seclusion and restraint, suicide prevention, and culturally competent psychiatric care. The book's 35 chapters are divided into four parts: Part I, Inpatient Practice -- focuses on specialty psychiatric units (e.g., acute stabilization unit, eating disorders unit, forensic unit, child unit), including the many psychopharmacological and psychosocial treatments used within each. This section also touches on specialized treatment for patients with co-occurring problems, such as substance abuse, developmental disabilities, and legal difficulties. Part II, Special Clinical Issues -- covers clinical issues from the perspective of different populations (consumers, families, suicidal patients). This section also examines the recent trend toward patient-centered care. Part III, The Continuum of Care -- addresses psychiatric services within the community, such as rehabilitation programs, day hospitals, and emergency services. It discusses the importance of understanding hospital-based treatment within the broader perspective of patients' lives. Part IV, Structure and Infrastructure -- focuses on such often-overlooked topics as financing of care, risk management, electronic medical records, and the actual architecture of psychiatric hospitals, as well as the roles of psychiatric hospital administrators, psychiatric nurses, and psychiatrists and psychologists. An invaluable resource for both clinicians and administrators, as well as a comprehensive teaching tool for residents, the Textbook of Hospital Psychiatry is a must-have for all professionals who work in psychiatric settings.

Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.