A Tale of Two Cities: The Exploration of the Trieste Public Psychiatry Model in San Francisco.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the "Trieste model" of public psychiatry is one of the most progressive in the world. It was in Trieste, Italy, in the 1970s that the radical psychiatrist, Franco Basaglia, implemented his vision of anti-institutional, democratic psychiatry. The Trieste model put the suffering person-not his or her disorders-at the center of the health care system.

Cost-effectiveness of clinical case management for ED frequent users: results of a randomized trial.

Objective: The objective of the study was to test the hypothesis that clinical case management is more cost-effective than usual care for frequent users of the emergency department (ED).

Methods: The study is a 24-month randomized trial obtaining data on psychosocial problems through interviews and service usage and cost data from administrative records.

Results: Two-hundred fifty-two frequent users were randomized (167 to case management, 85 to usual care).

Characteristics and psychosocial needs of victims of violent crime identified at a public-sector hospital: data from a large clinical trial.

Objective: This study explores the feasibility of recruiting acutely injured public-sector crime victims into a research protocol and identifies baseline characteristics associated with posttraumatic distress in the enrolled sample (N=541).

Method: Assertive research tracking methods were used to enroll participants, who completed baseline interviews. Descriptive statistics were used to define characteristics of the sample and prevalence of psychosocial problems and posttraumatic distress.

Case management for substance abusers with HIV/AIDS: a randomized clinical trial.

In a random assignment study, substance-abusing patients with HIV/AIDS in a public general hospital received a brief contact condition or received 12 months of case management delivered by paraprofessionals. Patient outcomes included substance use, HIV transmission risk, physical health, psychological status, and quality of living situation. In both conditions, a significant decrease occurred in a range of problems from Intake to the 6-month interview, followed by no significant pattern of change at 12- and 18-month interviews.