Psychiatric Partial Hospitalization Programs: Following World Health Organization Guidelines with a Special Focus on Women with Delusional Disorder
Alexandre González-Rodríguez,
Aida Alvarez,
Armand Guàrdia,
Rafael Penadés,
José Antonio Monreal,
Diego J. Palao,
Javier Labad,
Mary V. Seeman
Affiliations
Alexandre González-Rodríguez
Department of Mental Health, Institut d’Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT), Parc Tauli University Hospital, Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), CIBERSAM, Sabadell, 08280 Barcelona, Spain
Aida Alvarez
Department of Mental Health, Institut d’Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT), Parc Tauli University Hospital, Sabadell, 08280 Barcelona, Spain
Armand Guàrdia
Department of Mental Health, Parc Tauli University Hospital, Sabadell, 08280 Barcelona, Spain
Rafael Penadés
Barcelona Clinic Schizophrenia Unit (BCSU), Neurosciences Institute, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, University of Barcelona (UB), IDIBAPS, CIBERSAM, 08029 Barcelona, Spain
José Antonio Monreal
Department of Mental Health, Hospital Universitari Mútua de Terrassa, Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), CIBERSAM, 08221 Terrassa, Spain
Diego J. Palao
Department of Mental Health, Institut d’Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT), Parc Tauli University Hospital, Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), CIBERSAM, Sabadell, 08280 Barcelona, Spain
Javier Labad
Department of Mental Health, Consorci Sanitari del Maresme, Fundació Parc Taulí, CIBERSAM, 08304 Mataró, Spain
Mary V. Seeman
Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5P 3L6, Canada
The World Health Organization (WHO) developed a 7-year Mental Health Action Plan in 2013, which recommends integration of health and social care services into community-based settings, implementation of strategies for health promotion and prevention of illness, and support of research. In this review, we highlight partial hospitalization programs (PHPs) for delusional disorder (DD), with a special focus on the health and psychosocial needs of women. We suggest that PHPs are, in many ways, ideal settings for carrying out WHO recommendations. PHPs are multidisciplinary and consequently are able to provide a wide range of flexible program offerings. Programming in PHPs is able to address, with proven efficacy, individual needs, such as those presented by women at the various stages of their reproductive life. PHPs are a community bridge between hospital and outpatient services and can quickly adapt to specific needs as affected by gender, but also by age and cultural origins. They are ideal settings for professional training and for conducting clinical research. PHPs operate on the principle of shared decision making, and thus more readily than many other treatment sites, engaging difficult-to-treat patients, such as those with DD, by successfully establishing long-term relationships of trust.
