Are Small Teams a Viable Strategy to Deliver Early Psychosis Intervention Services in Rural Areas? An Ontario Fidelity Study.

Abstract

Early psychosis intervention (EPI) is a complex model of care designed to be delivered by a large multidisciplinary team. However, in practice, it is often delivered by very small teams, particularly in rural areas. This study analyzed fidelity data from over half of Ontario EPI programs (n = 24) to compare model fidelity in programs with smaller (≤2.1 staff) and larger (≥4.3 staff) teams. Few differences were identified, suggesting that small teams may be a viable option to deliver the EPI model, although both large and small teams were challenged to deliver almost a third of the elements of care.