Professional team's choices of intervention towards problems and needs of patients suffering from schizophrenia across six European countries.
OBJECTIVE
This article compares in a systematic way the team's intervention choices of professionals across seven European countries: France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain towards problems and needs of patients with schizophrenia and relates this to the diversity of psychiatric systems.


METHODS
The clinical and social status of 433 patients was assessed by means of the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) and the Needs for Care Assessment instrument (NFCAS) which was used to determine teams' intervention choices toward the NFCAS problems.


RESULTS
There is no, or little, consensus across Europe on teams' intervention choices towards either the clinical or the social problems and needs of patients suffering from schizophrenic disorders. These comparisons outlined the cultural differences concerning the interventions that were proposed and should be taken into account when interpreting the number of needs and the need status since the need status relies heavily on the interventions proposed. The differences were not connected with the availability of resources; most of the comparisons show differences between centers as well as differences between groups of relatively similar resource countries.
Kovess
Vivianne
V
Director of Public Health Research Department MGEN, 3 square Max Hymans, 75748 Paris cedex 15, France. vkovess@mgen.fr
Caldas de Almeida José
Miguel
M
Carta
Mauro
M
Dubuis
Jacques
J
Lacalmontie
Elisabeth
E
Pellet
Jacques
J
Roelandt
Jean-Luc
JL
Moreno Kustner
Berta
B
Walsh
Dermot
D
Wiersma
Durk
D
D002755:Choice Behavior; D005602:France; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D007494:Ireland; D007558:Italy; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009426:Netherlands; D010347:Patient Care Planning; D010348:Patient Care Team; D011174:Portugal; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000628:therapy*; D013030:Spain