Preventing severe mental illnesses - new prospects and ethical challenges

We review some exciting recent developments in studies of psychoses in gene ral and schizophrenia in particular that offer hope such illnesses can be i dentified and treated early. Early treatment promises better outcomes for b oth the affected individuals and their families, and perhaps even the prosp ect of true prevention. But testing such interventions in vulnerable patien ts can raise ethical difficulties that if not adequately addressed may harm patients and hamper the development of these interventions. We believe the re are appropriate ways of dealing with the ethical problems in the early i ntervention field, though we also suggest that additional work on both scie ntific and ethical fronts will need to be done to make these ways real. As a start toward that end, we have summarized a number of the debates in the field and from the following articles, and have distilled five 'points to c onsider' that interested parties will need to take into account. (C) 2001 E lsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.