Comprehensive Care for Patients in the Developing World

Abstract

This article describes the efforts made by some centers in India and other low- and middle-income countries to provide comprehensive care to persons with schizophrenia and their families despite limited resources. In India these efforts include leveraging existing but unutilized resources in the community (such as community-level lay workers), supporting and empowering families as the primary and major caregivers, and using telepsychiatry to reach untreated persons in remote and rural areas. Innovations of this kind have added value to the process of professional care for those with schizophrenia. They may be useful strategies for other developing countries to adopt.