SynthesisThe Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry2024
The benefits and harms of community treatment orders for people diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses: A rapid umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Synthesis in The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effect of community treatment orders on aggression or criminal behaviour in people with a mental illness.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2025Pooled it
- 'Traumatic to Say the Least; It Still Affects Me': Consumer Perspectives on Community Treatment Orders in Australia.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2026Article
- Availability and restrictiveness of community treatment orders across 33 European countries.BJPsych open · 2026Article
- Understanding compulsory community treatment across Australian jurisdictions: insights from three different data sources.BJPsych open · 2026Article
- Factors influencing the outcomes of Community Treatment Orders: state-wide study using linked administrative health data from New South Wales, Australia.BJPsych open · 2026Article
- Restricting community treatment orders to people with non-affective psychosis is needed to reduce use and improve subsequent outcomes: Queensland-wide cohort study.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2025Article
- Ten Years of Community Treatment Orders in Western Switzerland: an Update.Community mental health journal · 2025Article
- Formal Coercion and the Moral Division of Labor: Moving Beyond Role Conflicts in Psychiatric Nursing.Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing · 2025Article
- When Psychiatric Services Become a Waiting Room: Situational Analysis of Involuntary Commitment and Treatment as Experienced by Patients and Nurses.Clinical nursing research · 2025Article
- Article
- Predictors of Poor Mental Health Outcomes in Healthcare Workers during COVID-19: A Two Waves Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsCommunity treatment orders have been introduced in many jurisdictions with increasing use over time. We conducted a rapid umbrella review to synthesise the quantitative and qualitative evidence from systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses of their potential harms and benefits.
methodsA systematic search of Medline, PubMed, Embase and PsycINFO for relevant systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses. Where available, participants on community treatment orders were compared with controls receiving voluntary psychiatric treatment. This review is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023398767) and the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/zeq35).
resultsIn all, 17 publications from 14 studies met the inclusion criteria. Quantitative synthesis of data from different systematic reviews was not possible. There were mixed findings on the effects of community treatment orders on health service use, and clinical, psychosocial or forensic outcomes. Whereas uncontrolled evidence suggested benefits, results were more equivocal from controlled studies and randomised controlled trials showed no effect. Any changes in health service use took several years to become apparent. There was evidence that better targeting of community treatment order use led to improved outcomes. Although there were other benefits, such as in mortality, findings were mostly rated as suggestive using predetermined and standardised criteria. Qualitative findings suggested that family members and clinicians were generally positive about the effect of community treatment orders but those subjected to them were more ambivalent. Any possible harms were under-researched, particularly in quantitative designs.
conclusionsThe evidence for the benefits of community treatment orders remains inconclusive. At the very least, use should be better targeted to people most likely to benefit. More quantitative research on harms is indicated.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.