[The Open-Doors Policy in Oslo: both the starting point and the final chord].

Background: The Lovisenberg Diakonal Hospital recently introduced an Open-Door Policy in their (formerly) closed psychiatric admission wards for people with a forced admission to an acute psychiatric crisis. Their modern mental health care system is remarkably similar to the Dutch healthcare organization, with shared values and standards, and provides good grounds for an implementation of an Open-Doors Policy in the Netherlands.

Aim: Gaining inspiration to reduce seclusion and create a new quality development and assessment process for closed admission departments in the Dutch mental health care system.

Different perspectives of prison guards and mental health workers in forensic care.

Objectives: This study investigates the differences in treatment perspectives of prison guards and mental health practitioners within a Psychiatric Prison Unit (PPU).

Methods: This qualitative study uses questionnaires and focus groups to explore the relationships between prison guards ( = 4) and mental health professionals ( = 6) working at the Psychiatric Prison Unit in Zwolle, the Netherlands. Two questionnaires (the Recovery Attitude Questionnaire and the Recovery Knowledge Inventory) were completed by the participants.

[Daily practice of a FACT-team: results of an experience sampling study].

Background: Flexible assertive community treatment (FACT) teams are widespread in the Netherlands. Despite the presence of a model description and model fidelity scale, it is unclear what FACT workers actually do daily.

Aim: Examination of the daily activities of FACT workers on weekdays in relation to the intended activities from the theoretical FACT framework.

An observational comparison of FACT and ACT in the Netherlands and the US.

Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) is a well-defined service delivery model for the care and treatment of the most severely mentally ill in the community with American origins. The Dutch have adapted the model in order to accommodate a broader range of needs and allow more flexible implementation. Functional Assertive Community Treatment (FACT) provides the intensity of care needed to help participants sustain life in the community as well as continuity of care over time for many vulnerable client populations.

[Assertive Treatment as a regular function within mental health].

Background: The setting for providing assertive treatment (AT) has changed during the last 30 years in The Netherlands from assertive community treatment (ACT) and flexible assertive community treatment (FACT) to municipalities. The provision of AT varies between municipalities.

Aim: Describing the concept of AT, the nature and size of the target group, and the reasons why people with severe mental illness (SMI) do not seek treatment and the place of AT in mental health care.