Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Continuity of Care in Mental Health Services: Toward Clarifying the Construct
Article in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry - "Continuity of care (COC) is widely regarded as central to the provision of mental health services. It has recently assumed greater importance in conjunction with the decentralization of service delivery in mental health systems across Europe and North America. Clinicians commonly assume that, if COC is absent from the services provided to patients with chronic and debilitating conditions, the result may be social isolation, economic hardship, and threats to quality of life. The concept has been characterized by some as a “strategic first choice” in the case of service planning and delivery for patients with severe and persistent mental illness. Theoretical statements regarding COC have emphasized multiple component dimensions, reflecting its status as a theoretical construct, but as yet, there are no definitive statements on which dimensions are critical. In this study, we systematically examined the COC construct with the intent of identifying those critical dimensions."