How to measure staff continuity in intensive psychiatric home treatment: a routine data and single case analysis.

Background: Intensive forms of outreach mental health care (IOC) such as crisis resolution or home treatment teams are increasingly implemented as alternatives to inpatient admission, providing recovery-oriented treatment at home at comparable costs and outcomes. However, one issue with IOC is the lack of continuity regarding staff members who provide home visits, complicating relationship building and meaningful therapeutic exchange. The aim of this study is to validate existing primarily qualitative findings using performance data and to explore a possible correlation between the number of staff involved within IOC treatment and the service users' length of stay (LOS).