Objective - To establish a Reinforced Concerted Action in public mental health addressing the "needs of emerging dependency groups" through observational study activities;- To standardise psychiatric rehabilitation protocols for the training and evaluation of relapse prevention interventions in therapeutic community (TC) i.e. residential treatment programmes;- To compile a European database.The specific needs of emerging dependency groups relates to a dynamic development across European public mental health systems with an increasing prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses characterising emerging dependency groups with substance-related, pathological gambling and sexual disorder. These groups are often misdiagnosed or even undiagnosed. There exists a need for standardised protocols across Europe in order to improve the quality of research and services now in a state of fragmentation. This need has been recognised in several Europeanwide initiatives : EC-COST A6,Eramus Programme on Student Mobility and European Collaborating Centres in Addiction Studies. The RC objective will be accomplished by fusing relevant components of these networks into a new network resource. Targeted training of TC staff will be provided.Research tasks are organised in two phases : 1) development of a multifunctional methodology for standardising and protocoling differential psychiatric diagnosis and the effectivity of treatment service assessment based upon a new battery instruments constructed from existing psychiatric systems; 2) conduct of staff training and observational pilot studies leading to a multicentre field trial of a minimal and enhanced personalised relapse prevention intervention. The training and research protocol will be initiated in a core group of European TC programmes as a demonstration activity of psychiatric rehabilitation methodology. The psychiatric rehabilitation protocol will provide a prototype for application to other diagnostic groups with a public mental health relevance. An European database will be constructed from the data compiled during the project. Fields of science natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabasesmedical and health sciencesclinical medicinephysiotherapy Programme(s) FP4-BIOMED 2 - Specific research, technological development and demonstration programme in the field of biomedicine and health, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 6.2 - Health determinants and prevention strategies Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CON - Coordination of research actions Coordinator Universiteit Maastricht Address 45-47,parallelweg 6200 MD Maastricht Netherlands See on map EU contribution € 0,00
