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Many bio-psycho-social-spiritual advances have been made toward developing evidence-based practices for the treatment of schizophrenia. Future research will secure this progress. Please consider the following areas for future research:
- Now that we are developing guidelines for the use of antipsychotics (e.g., medication algorithms and PORT recommendations), more studies need to address conformance criteria and rates (Lehman et al., 1998a).
- Great advances have been made to identify the genetic theories of the etiology of schizophrenia.
- More research will be useful to identify guidelines for fidelity of therapies that are known to be effective for people diagnosed with ("refractory") schizophrenia who are "resistent" to medications, such as ECT and cognitive-behavioral therapies.
- The implementation of family psychoeducation in the treatment of schizophrenia will be more effective if more studies focus on the needs of families from different cultures. Did you know that some cultures do not even have a word for "schizophrenia" in their language? (Please read Gellis, 2001 article for more information).
- Family Psychoeducation and continuing support for families will help reduce family suffering and help the client to achieve "best outcomes".
- The stigma of mental illness is everpresent in the treatment and advocacy for people who happen to have mental illnesses. More inititatives by family members, persons with mental illness, professionals and policy makers need to address discrimination and myths.
- In the vocational rehabilitation arena, more research is needed to address 1) culture and work, 2) gender differences and supported employment and 3) the vocational goals of older folks and whether they are being adequately served by programs.
- Supported employment models need to continue to address how to structure programs to engage clients, and make the job placements meaningful. The individual placement and support (IPS) model has a good start on this, and hopefully more research will work to increase client satisfaction and tenure.
- More research is needed in providing evidence as to what degree client symptoms influence adherence to psychotropic, as well as psychosocial treatment.
- More examination is needed as to societal and family impact regarding medication compliance. Social culture and cues, as well as gaps between client and medication compliance, such as medication cost and stigma, need to be critically attended to.
- Characteristics of the client (health values and beliefs, age, socioeconomic status, education level, length of symptoms, etc.) need to be studied further to provide more evidence between correlations of these characteristics and medication compliance.
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All of the mental health interventions mentioned here require the use of a multidisiplinary team (e.g., the client, family, medical staff, social workers, occupational specialists, employers, employees, etc.) in order for the treatments to be successful.
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