The Three R's Rehabilitation Program: A Prevention Approach for the Management of Relapse Symptoms Associated with Psychiatric Diagnoses

Concern has been expressed that the lifetime care needs of many people with psychiatric disabilities such as schizophrenia, major depression, and the bipolar spectrum disorders will lead the health care industry into bankruptcy. Approximately 3.3 million adults 18 years of age or older in the civilian, non-institutionalized United States population have a serious psychiatric disability during any 12-month period. This prevalence represents a rate of 18.2 adults per 1000 persons, or 41 million adults. An epidemiological controlled case design of findings related to 88 patients diagnosed with either schizophrenia or a mood disorder was conducted to evaluate if enrollment in a 12-session course designed to simultaneously treat patients, families, and providers would result in a decrease in inpatient days. When compared to a randomized matched control group, the treatment group decreased from a pretreatment average of 57 days per 2 years per patient to 3.8 days per 2 years per patient. A conservative estimate of 2173.6 inpatient days were saved for the study cohort over a 2-year time period. Estimated savings from this decrease was $1,086,800. Results were significant at the p =