Détection et intervention précoce : un nouveau paradigme

Abstract

Treating psychotic disorders in their earliest stages has become a focus for research and clinical care worldwide. Specialized programs for early detection and early intervention in psychosis in adolescents and young adults have developed in many countries and have shown their effectiveness. After a first psychotic episode, the quality of functional remission is best when specialized care is proposed at the earliest. Moreover, the period preceding the emergence of a constituted disorder (“prodromal”) is a period of opportunity for preventive interventions that reduces the risk of transition to psychosis. These programs have further shown that the evolution of a mental state at-risk of psychotic transition, presenting some symptoms, towards a full-blown psychotic episode or from a psychotic episode to a chronic schizophrenic disorder are not inevitable. France has not yet developed these practices at the national level, but some initiatives are emerging and the French Transition network, within the Institute of Psychiatry, participates in the French-speaking branch of IEPA. The deployment of such programs is a real societal challenge and represents a paradigm shift: it questions the practices and the organization of the healthcare system, but also the way health care professionals and the general public look at these diseases.