Schizophrenia bulletin
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Schizophrenia bulletin · Mar 2012
At issue: Cochrane, early intervention, and mental health reform: analysis, paralysis, or evidence-informed progress?
Among the noncommunicable diseases, mental ill-health represents the major threat to social and economic progress because it impacts so powerfully on the most critical decades of life. Consequently, mental health reform is increasingly recognized as an urgent priority worldwide. This brings into sharp focus the role of evidence, and more specifically the Cochrane paradigm, in influencing decisions about health system reform. ⋯ So on the one hand, the evidence-based paradigm must not be misused to stifle or paralyze urgent reform. Alternatively, there is a real risk that, if we do not improve the sophistication of EBHC, the whole paradigm will be sidelined and reform will remain reactive, impulsive, and desultory. The recent Cochrane review on early intervention in psychosis provides an opportunity to consider these issues and their wider significance.