Andy Owen and Loopinder Sood of the NHS Partnership Trust argue in a commentary in The Lancet Psychiatry that community treatment orders aren’t as ineffective as a study in the journal showed.
“We suggest that OCTET cannot claim to have disproved the effectiveness of CTOs,” write Owen and Sood. “(W)e question the original conclusions and associated calls for a moratorium on their use.”
In their own commentary, the authors of the original article state that, “OCTET’s results have proved a disappointment to those who had high hopes for the introduction of CTOs and that includes us, the research team. A vigorous critical response has helped us to clarify several key issues that were inevitably condensed in the Lancet Article.”
Owen, Andy, and Loopinder Sood. “OCTET Does Not Prove Community Treatment Orders Are Ineffective.” The Lancet Psychiatry 2, no. 5 (May 2015): 373–75. doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00116-9. (Full text with free registration)
Burns, Tom, Jorun Rugkåsa, and Andrew Molodynski. “In Defence of OCTET.” The Lancet Psychiatry 2, no. 5 (May 2015): 375–76. doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00120-0. (Full text with free registration)
