Methodological challenges in evaluating mobile crisis psychiatric programs

Mobile crisis psychiatric programs (MCPPs) are innovative community interventions that have gained acceptance in the health, social and political environments. In Canada they are becoming widely implemented and the need to evaluate them is pressing. Unfortunately, there has been very little formal evaluation of them and virtually no data as to their effectiveness. Part of the reason for this deficiency may be the methodological challenges inherent in these programs. In this article, we discuss these difficulties by examining the integration of these programs in the service delivery network and offer suggestions for future evaluative research.