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Wood HJ, Jones N, Eack SM, Chengappa KNR, Prasad KM, Kelly C, Montrose D, Schooler NR, Ganguli R, Carter CS, Keshavan MS, Sarpal DK. Over 30 years of STEP: The Pittsburgh experience with first-episode psychosis. Early Interv Psychiatry 2024. [PMID: 38637133 DOI: 10.1111/eip.13536] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2023] [Revised: 04/04/2024] [Accepted: 04/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024]
Abstract
AIMS For over 30 years, combined research and treatment settings in the US have been critical to conceptualizing care for first-episode psychosis (FEP). Here we describe an early example of such a context, the Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP) clinic, which is affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh. METHODS We describe STEP's historical roots and establishment in the early 1990s; STEP's research and treatment contributions, alongside its growth and ongoing leadership. RESULTS Research-based clinics, like STEP, preceded and helped pave the way for the Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode project in the US and the ensuing Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC) approach, now widely adopted in the US. Early clinic-based research at STEP helped establish protocols for psychopharmacology, the relevance of effective early treatment, including psychosocial approaches, and highlighted disparities in treatment outcomes across race/ethnicity. Multidisciplinary collaboration and dialogue with consumers contributed to early treatment, combining psychosocial and pharmacological approaches. STEP adopted CSC and is situated within a bi-state Learning Health System. STEP has retained a relatively unique 5-year treatment model and exists within continuum of care ideally suited to studying psychotic illness and treatment outcomes. CONCLUSIONS STEP remains the largest academic FEP clinic in Pennsylvania. Academic FEP clinics like STEP will have a critical role within Learning Health Systems nationally to model participatory approaches, sustain early intervention treatment quality and ongoing treatment developments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helen J Wood
- Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP), UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Nev Jones
- School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Shaun M Eack
- School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - K N Roy Chengappa
- Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP), UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Konasale M Prasad
- Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP), UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Christian Kelly
- Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP), UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Debra Montrose
- Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP), UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Nina R Schooler
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA
| | - Rohan Ganguli
- Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP), UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Cameron S Carter
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine, California, USA
| | - Matcheri S Keshavan
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Massachusetts Mental Health Center Division of Public Psychiatry, Massachusetts, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Deepak K Sarpal
- Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP), UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
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Berkhout SG. Paradigm shift? Purity, progress and the origins of first-episode psychosis. MEDICAL HUMANITIES 2018; 44:172-180. [PMID: 29431144 DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2017-011383] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/10/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
First-episode psychosis has garnered significant attention and resources within mental health services in North America, Europe and Australia/New Zealand since the 1990s. Despite this widespread embrace, little scholarship exists that examines underlying concepts, ideologies and imagery embedded within the early intervention paradigm. In this paper, I offer a sociohistorical analysis of the emergence of first-episode psychosis and early intervention as entities in psychiatry, drawing on contemporary philosophical thought to explore various concepts embedded in them. Although scattered references to 'prodrome' and 'incipient cases' exist in the historic psychiatric literature, the notion of first-episode psychosis as a distinct chronological stage emerged in the late 1980s. This occurred in response to a desire for a homogeneous, medication-naive population within schizophrenia research. Thematically, concerns regarding 'purity' as well as notions of 'progress' can be read off of the body of work surrounding the creation of the term and its development into a clinical organising concept. Furthermore, examining the sociohistorical context of the term demonstrates its entanglement with the course of atypical antipsychotic drug development, the expansion of clinical rating scales and wider neoliberal biopolitics within healthcare. Within psychiatry, the early intervention model has been termed a 'paradigm shift,' with the promise that earlier interventions will translate into shorter durations of untreated illness, improved utilisation of services and better prognoses for recovery. While these are laudable goals, they are tied to assumptions about biomedical progress and idealisations of clinical populations that feminist and disability critiques problematise.
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