Bmc Psychiatry
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Health care utilization and cost after discharge from a mental health hospital; an RCT comparing community residential aftercare and treatment as usual.
Community residential aftercare (step-down) services can ease the transition after a mental health hospital stay for patients with severe mental illness (SMI). ⋯ In this study, it was not possible to draw a definite conclusion about the effect, due to the small sample and imprecision of the estimates. The direction of the results and size of the point estimate, in addition to findings in other studies, indicates that transferring patients ready for discharge from mental hospital to community residential aftercare can have the potential to reduce total consumption of health services and costs without increased hospital admissions.