A comparison of early psychosis treatment services using consensus and evidence-based performance measures: moving towards setting standards

Objective: This study used data from two Canadian early psychosis programs to assess the feasibility of using common performance measures and to assess the extent to which each program meets suggested standards for early intervention. Methods: Data were extracted from administrative databases and supplemented by health records for 332 individuals admitted to two services in order to calculate values for 19 performance indicators for January 2000 to January 2004. Inter-rater reliability was established for data abstraction. Results: The two samples had similar demographic and clinical profiles. There were no statistically significant differences in 1-, 2- and 3-year admission rates (year 1: 27% vs. 30%, P = 0.625; year 2: 31% vs. 38%, P = 0.248; year 3: 35% vs. 42%, P = 0.260), duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) (24 vs. 28 weeks; P = 0.844) and positive symptom remission at 1 year (72% vs. 78%; P = 0.285). There were statistically significant differences between the two services in mean wait time (18 vs. 13 days; P = 0.045), proportion of patients on second-generation anti-psychotics at 1 year (75% vs. 89%; P = 0.002), and proportion of patients adherent to antipsychotic medication for a minimum of 12 months (76% vs. 83%; P = 0.007). Conclusion: The data provides useful information on the feasibility of implementing key performance measures across early psychosis programs to assess the extent to which they are meeting standards for such services.