Psychiatric rehabilitation programs: putting concepts into practice?

Mental health settings serving the severely psychiatrically disabled or the long-term chronic client have begun developing a rehabilitation orientation in an attempt to increase their effectiveness with this group. The authors have, in an earlier work, described basic elements of a rehabilitation program. These elements have been refined. Forty rehabilitation-oriented community and hospital agencies were assessed in terms of the presence or absence of these elements of a rehabilitation approach. Results indicate that the programs in the agencies clearly value client involvement and a program focus on improving skill and resource utilization. These concepts, however, are only beginning to be systematically implemented in practice.