[Family burden of patients receiving inpatient treatment or alternative forms of psychiatric care].

Professionals working with chronic patients are usually aware of vast deficitis in what is called in the literature "natural support networks". The deficits generally increase over time, as is the case with broadly defined social skills. Although the efficacy of biological treatment was similar in all the three forms of care, nevertheless, patients and their families, when left without psychotherapeutic support provided to them by the day hospital or community treatment team, at one-year follow-up indicated lack of any satisfactory improvement in many dimensions of their functioning, and in some aspects-even a progressive deterioration.