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VIDEO: Benefits, challenges of team-based care for early-onset schizophrenia

ATLANTA — Lisa Dixon, MD, MPH, of New York-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center, discusses the benefits of coordinated specialty care for early-onset schizophrenia and how to overcome systemic and organizational challenges of implementation.

Two significant research findings show the efficacy of coordinated specialty care for early-onset schizophrenia, according to Dixon. They include the association between shorter duration of untreated psychosis and better outcomes and treatment programs, which are now known as coordinated specialty care, improve outcomes

“So what does this mean for the individual psychiatrist? Psychiatrists should know that these programs have been researched and are becoming increasingly available,” Dixon told Healio.com/Psychiatry. “If I had a patient with early-onset schizophrenia I would certainly want to refer them to such a program. But it’s important to realize that these programs are just being brought to scale, there aren’t that many of them yet, but we can hope that in the next five to ten years they become the standard of practice.”