Effectiveness of Assertive Community Treatment in Hong Kong Among Patients With Frequent Hospital Admissions

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the effectiveness of assertive community treatment (ACT) for a group of psychiatric patients in Hong Kong with frequent hospital admissions. METHODS: The study compared hospitalization and other outcomes among participants of a two-year ACT intervention and a control group who had received treatment as usual two years earlier. The patients were Chinese adult psychiatric patients who had three or more admissions in the 12 months before the study. RESULTS: Seventy patients were recruited for each group. Although all the outcome measures decreased with time for both groups, repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated that the treatment group had significantly greater reductions in readmission rate, length of stay, and total days between a missed medical appointment and the next service contact. CONCLUSIONS: ACT was effective in reducing hospitalization and enhancing service contacts for a group of Chinese psychiatric patients with frequent hospital admissions.