Evidence-Based Practice for Psychiatric Rehabilitation in the United States

Abstract

In 1999, the landmark Mental Health: A Report of The Surgeon General in the United States, urged mental health systems to utilize knowledge gained from research to improve service delivery in mental health. These services have been called evidence-based practice (EBP). The implementation of EBP is rapidly becoming standard practice and required by most funding sources in the United States. By 2003, forty-eight states responded to the country’s State Mental Health Agency Profiles System shows that all responded states are actively working to provide EBP to mental health consumers (National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute [NRI], 2004). This movement of implementing evidence-based practice is becoming the trend for psychiatric rehabilitation in the United States. The purposes of this article are to introduce and provide an overview of the six EBPs for psychiatric rehabilitation which are developed and implemented in the United States and to identify some of the opportunities for occupational therapy services based on these EBPs.