Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Summary of treatment modalities in psychiatric disorders
- 3 A critical assessment of methods and processes used to develop psychiatric drug treatments
- 4 Section I – The efficacy and safety of electroconvulsive therapy
- 4 Section II – Focal brain stimulation approaches to psychiatric treatment
- 5 The effectiveness of psychological treatments in psychiatry
- 6 Educational interventions
- 7 Complementary and alternative medicine
- 8 Complex interventions
- Part III Specific treatments
- Appendix I Summary of specific drugs having evidence of effectiveness in mental disorders
- Appendix II Key to effectiveness tables
- Index
- References
8 - Complex interventions
from Part II - Summary of treatment modalities in psychiatric disorders
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Summary of treatment modalities in psychiatric disorders
- 3 A critical assessment of methods and processes used to develop psychiatric drug treatments
- 4 Section I – The efficacy and safety of electroconvulsive therapy
- 4 Section II – Focal brain stimulation approaches to psychiatric treatment
- 5 The effectiveness of psychological treatments in psychiatry
- 6 Educational interventions
- 7 Complementary and alternative medicine
- 8 Complex interventions
- Part III Specific treatments
- Appendix I Summary of specific drugs having evidence of effectiveness in mental disorders
- Appendix II Key to effectiveness tables
- Index
- References
Summary
Editor's note
We have included a chapter on complex interventions in this section because we feel it is necessary to introduce the subject before the fuller accounts in Part III of this book. Evidence is often difficult to obtain in psychiatry, not just because the collection of data involves harder work than in many other subjects but also because so many of our interventions are complex ones, and the interpretation of data from them so much more difficult than those of simple interventions. We hope it helps making interpretations here a little more cautious. There is also an important element of effectiveness included in this chapter; the evaluation of different types of service delivery in psychiatry, and these too usually represent very complex interventions.
Introduction
A complex intervention is easily understood at one level. According to Samuel Johnson, the originator of the first Dictionary of English, a complex intervention is ‘an agency between antecedents and consecutives including many particulars’, and this is as good a definition as any. In the evaluation of treatment, complex interventions are the most difficult one has to undertake. Let me give one example to make it clear that we are not exaggerating. We do not yet have good evidence of the effectiveness of a treatment that has been with us for over 60 years, collectively called ‘therapeutic communities’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cambridge Textbook of Effective Treatments in Psychiatry , pp. 157 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008