Abstract

LOPES, Rui  and  CURRAL, Rosário. Day hospital in community psychiatry: Is it still an alternative to Mental Health Care?. Arq Med [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.5, pp.218-222. ISSN 2183-2447.

The Day Hospital constitutes one of the main components of the community psychiatry and it is integrated in the current social psychiatry policy, representing one of the main alternatives to inpatient regimen. The concept was created in Russia in the 1930’s and spread to America during the 40’s and 50’s, reaching its peak in the 1970’s. Even though there was in the decades ahead a decline of expansion and an increased closure of day hospital programs, there has been in the last few years, a renewed interest as well as an increased number of established day hospitals. Although this phenomenon is related to evidence of cost effectiveness and social advantage, showing that they can provide feasible and effective care, new paradigms like acute home care can make it seem old fashionable and aged. Nowadays, a more intensive treatment and an increasing number of therapeutic models applied to different psychiatric disorders, settled by a modern community mental health care system, are becoming the reality of its practice. But the somehow heterogeneity of the community services that the designation day hospital comprises can make difficult the evaluation of its efficacy. The purpose of this review is to find out what is the position of day hospital in the context of actual and future mental health care.

Keywords : Day hospital; Community psychiatry; Mental health.

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