Thursday, May 13, 2010

STAIR helps patients climb out of reoffending

The Service for Treatment and Abatement of Interpersonal Risk (STAIR) is a cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) programme originally designed for prisoners and adapted for offenders with chronic mental illness. A team of researchers led by Kathy F. Yates from the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in New York studied 145 patients who had completed the programme and who were followed for between six months and five years after being discharged. The team found that significantly fewer arrests, hospitalisations and days institutionalised occurred after people had been through the STAIR programme. Whether people continued to take their medication was the single most important factor associated with people staying well and the prevention of criminal behaviour.

Yates, Kathy F. ... [et al] - Psychiatric patients with histories of aggression and crime five years after discharge from a cognitive-behavioral program Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology April 2010, 21(2), 167-188

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