Early Intervention in Psychosis in Young People: A Population and Public Health Perspective

Abstract

Over the past two decades or more, the creation of early intervention services (EIS) for psychoses has been regarded as one of the most significant developments in the reform of mental health services. The development of EIS is based on evidence of their superior effectiveness on multiple domains compared with regular care and the well-established relationship between delay in treatment of psychosis and outcome. The benefits of EIS may, however, be underutilized because of a patchy implementation even within high-income countries, low attention to actively reducing delays in treatment, inadequate knowledge about the length and dose of EIS required, and a lack of a population perspective in research and service planning. In this commentary, we offer some suggestions of how to address these challenges.