Does Early Intervention for Psychosis Really Work?

"The false positive rate in selecting prepsychosis is at least about 60% to 70% in the very best of hands and may be as high as 90% in general practice." — Australia's Reckless Experiment In Early Intervention
By Allen Frances, MD | June 8, 2011 - UBM Medica Psychiatric Times

This article makes me wonder how many lives are actually being improved if for every true case of psychosis, there are 9 false positives.

Though, people tend to worry even when a little kid has a temper tantrum.

Again and again, the experts warn us: psychiatric intervention should begin when the patient is able to give informed consent.

Only in the rare cases do you step in when a child has demonstrated psychosis to get them help.

In summary, every true psychotic, up to nine other people diagnosed as psychotic may be false positives.

As well, most psychotic episodes are of brief duration.

It is also known that Abilify causes brief psychotic episodes in mentally healthy people due to insomnia.

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Reference:

Psychiatric Times: Reckless Experiment In Early Intervention: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/blog/couchincrisis/content/article/10168/1874703