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. 2021 May;57(4):746-752.
doi: 10.1007/s10597-020-00716-2. Epub 2020 Sep 29.

Shared Reflection to Maximize Resources and Minimize Costs: The Reflecting Team Applied to a Hospital Environment

M M Balcells-Oliveró  1 , L Nuño  2 , N Freixa  1 , I Domínguez  3 , I Pons  4 , E Alcover  4 , T Gual  1
Affiliations

Shared Reflection to Maximize Resources and Minimize Costs: The Reflecting Team Applied to a Hospital Environment

M M Balcells-Oliveró et al. Community Ment Health J. 2021 May.

Abstract

Severe mental illness entails multiple hospital admissions and a large use of public resources. The Reflecting Team (RT), together with other dialogue strategies, place in a single therapeutic space, the patient, his family and a team of professionals to find together a solution to a situation of stagnation. The aim of this study was to evaluate feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a RT intervention in psychiatric inpatients in a public hospital. Six RT were performed, and clinical variables were collected retrospectively for six months pre-RT and post-RT. Both number of hospital admissions and total time spent in the psychiatric acute unit show a significant decrease. All computed cost showed statistically significant reduction. The results suggest RT might be a good strategy to introduce a positive change in the treatment of those psychiatric cases in which the patient and family find themselves caught in a system that seems to offer stale and ineffective help to problems that have become chronic.

Keywords: Cost-effectivity; Mental health costs; Open dialogue; Reflecting team; Severe mental illness.

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