Indiana Consortium For Mental Health
Services Research
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

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Abstract

Reprint # 8: CLIENT PERSPECTIVES ON HELPFUL INGREDIENTS OF ASSERTIVE COMMUNITY TREATMENT

Clients in 6 assertive community treatment (ACT) programs described features they liked best about ACT. Clients responded to an open ended question embedded in an interview administered by their case managers. Responses were coded into an average of 1.56 categories per client. Clients mentioned non specific ingredients most frequently (e.g., relationships with case managers); somewhat less frequently they mentioned ingredients considered by experts as integral to the ACT model (e. g, staff availability, home visits). Clients mentioning more non-specific ingredients reported greater client satisfaction. Clients mentioning more ACT-specific ingredients recorded a greater reduction in days hospitalized during the first 6 months of treatment. Level of functioning was related to clients responses. Compared to lower functioning clients, higher functioning clients were more likely to mention the helping relationship as a best feature. Although ACT services differ in many ways from traditional counseling or psychotherapy, client identified best aspects of ACT focused more strongly on features of the helping relationship that have been found to be important for counseling in general.