DOES EARLY INTERVENTION FOR PSYCHOSIS WORK? An analysis of Outcomes of Early Intervention in Psychosis based on the Critical Period Hypothesis, Measured by Number of Admissions and Bed Days Used over a period of Six Years, the first three in an Early Intervention Service, The second Three in a Community Mental Health Team

Background: Early Intervention in Psychosis (EI) was introduced into the British NHS as a result of the NHS Plan, about eleven years ago. The intention was to provide thebest possible care or patients with a first episode of psychosis.Recently however, long term studies over five years have suggested that early gains may be lost. Methods and Aims: We wished to establish whether our own group of patients who had received Early Intervention continued over six years to have better outcomes than patients treated in Community Mental Health Teams. To do this we analysed statistically the data on the readmissions and bed days used by our patients over the first six years of illness. Results: We found that patients, both in the whole two groups and in different sub-groups appeared to demonstrate a number of advantages,not always statistically significant, in favour of the El treated team. Discussion: In many cases, the small size of the samples may have impeded us observing statistically significant differences, however, in general, it appeared that there were a number of advantages in favour of the El treated team. Conclusion: Our study, though small, does appear to support the view that Early Intervention Services do improve outcomes and that some of the improvement may endure after the patient leaves El services. Much larger studies ae however required.