European Treatment Guidelines for schizophrenia

Excerpt

One of the concrete projects resolved by the EPA European Platform of Psychiatrists concerns the development and implementation of evidence-based treatment recommendations in psychiatry with an European dimension named 'Recommended Guidance'. The major objective is to improve quality of mental health care in Europe by providing evidence-based information and advice and to identify and minimize health care gaps. To provide such guidance for schizophrenia, one of the most serious and disabling disease in psychiatry and in general, an overview will be given of existing treatment guidelines in Europe. This overview will focus on the one hand on methodological quality, since an international survey in 2005 stated [1], that the methodological quality of the most guidelines was at best moderate. Major objective however will be discussing treatment recommendations regarding core clinical questions like early recognition and intervention, acute and long-term treatment. Participants hopefully from all over Europe are encouraged to engage in the discussion and to provide information from their national/regional treatment guidelines, mostly not available in English (or German) language. …