CLIENT PERSPECTIVES ON HELPFUL INGREDIENTS OF ASSERTIVE COMMUNITY TREATMENT

Clients in 6 assertive community treatment (ACT) programs describedfea tures they liked best about ACT Clients responded to an open-ended que stion embedded in an interview administered by their case managers. Re sponses were coded into an average of 1.56 categories per client. Clie nts mentioned non-specific ingredients most frequently (e.g., relation ships with case managers); somewhat less frequently they mentioned ing redients considered by experts as integral to the ACT model (e.g., sta ff availability home visits). Clients mentioning more non-specific ing redients reported greater client satisfaction, Clients mentioning more ACT-specific ingredients recorded a greater reduction in days hospita lized during the first 6 months of treatment. Level of functioning was related to clients' responses. Compared to lower functioning clients, higher functioning clients were more likely to mention the helping re lationship as a best feature. Although ACT services differ in many way s from traditional counseling or psychotherapy client-identified best aspects of ACT focused more strongly on features of the helping relati onship that have been found to be important for counseling in general.