From the psychiatric hospital to the community: integrating conditional release and contingency management.
Psychiatric hospital recidivism has been and continues to be a persistent problem in treating individuals with chronic mental illness. Conditional release, a form of involuntary outpatient commitment, has been suggested as one possible solution. Guided by therapeutic jurisprudence, this article presents a proposal about conditional release that would maximize convergence of social values and would be empirically testable. Specifically, a scientifically validated treatment intervention for individuals with chronic mental illness, contingency management, is integrated with conditional release. From this proposal, a number of empirical hypotheses and legal questions about discharging psychiatric patients are generated and discussed.
Elbogen
E B
EB
UNL Law/Psychology Program, 238 Burnett Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0308, USA. elbogen@unlserve.unl.edu
Tomkins
A J
AJ
D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D003134:Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006801:Humans; D007298:Insanity Defense; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D010359:Patient Readmission / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D011329:Prisoners / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012008:Recurrence; D012951:Socialization; D012960:Socioenvironmental Therapy