Valuating objectives and effectiveness in psychiatric rehabilitation today: I.C.F. usefulness

Abstract

Psychotic major disorders are long lasting and usually life long diseases.Their long term consequences might be described using different dimensions,shift away from focus on medical model towards model of functional disability.Manifest changes in the course and outcome,if any,will be reflected not on symptomatic level only but probably on functional,interpersonal and occupational levels.Actually a new tool is provided by the revised International Classification of Functioning,Disability and Health (ICF):it includes a change from negative descriptions of impairments,disabilities and handicaps to neutral descriptions of body structure and functions,activities and partecipation.A further change has been the inclusion of a section on environmental factors as a part of the classification,in reason of their role in either facilitating functioning or creating barriers for people with disabilities.The ICF is a useful instrument to comprehend cronically mentally ill in all their dimensions.Each one encompasses a theoretical foundation on wich a rehabilitative intervention can be formulated and evaluated.Intervention can be classified as rehabilitative in the case that it is mainly directed towards a functional improvement of the affected individual.For this reasons ICF represents a foundamental and complete tool for the valuation of rehabilitation objectives and effectiveness.