Intensive Home Treatment of Addicted Children and Adolescents. A Qualitativ Investigation

Purpose Intensive home treatment is becoming increasingly established as an outreach form of treatment in psychiatric clinics. The present study aims to answer the question of how specialists assess the practical feasibility with reference to addiction in the child and adolescent psychiatric setting. Methods In order to answer the research question, a qualitative research design was used to evaluate the extent to wich intensive home treatment can be reconciled with the minimum characteristics of inpatient treatment. The minimum characteristics of the OPS codes for inpatient and intensive home treatment served as the starting material for the study. The evaluation was carried out using qualitative content analysis. Results Provided that the help system is closely networked, stable domestic conditions and close medical support are provided, many opportunities open up for the target group. Personnel capacity and somatic detoxification appear to be major challenges in the outreach setting, but do not in themselves represent an exclusion criterion for intensive home treatment with reference to addiction. Conclusion The study shows that the intensive home treatment also offers promising further developements in the addiction support system in the field of child an adolescent psychiatry. The implementation in pilot tests with ongoing evaluation should be included in the further discussion of the practical implementation.