Evaluation of a Social Work Service for Self-Poisoning Patients

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Abstract
Summary: Four hundred patients aged at least 17 who came to Casualty in one year after deliberately poisoning themselves were randomly assigned between an Experimental social work service (task-centred casework) and a Control (Routine) follow-up service. 139 patients were excluded from the trial, most of whom were already in continuing psychiatric treatment. After one year there was no difference in the proportions of E and C patients who repeated self-poisoning (about 14 per cent), but significantly more of the excluded group had repeated (36 per cent). A random half of the trial patients were re-interviewed four months after admission. Both E and C groups had improved to a significant extent on measures of depressed mood and of social problems. E patients showed more change in social problems and were more satisfied with the service they had received.

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