206 Chapter 7 support citizens to participate in informal care for forensic psychiatric patients – facilitating recruitment of volunteers in forensic psychiatric care3. For example, citizens could be informed about their potential contribution to mental healthcare and safety in society and be rewarded with financial and/or career benefits (Broese van Groenou & de Boer, 2016; Klug et al., 2018). Finally, the development and implementation of informal social network interventions in forensic psychiatric care, as described above, requires a long-term commitment of multiple stakeholders (i.e., mental healthcare institutes, informal care institutes, research institutes, patients, and citizens), for which structural funding is warranted. CONCLUSION This dissertation examined the effectiveness of a social network intervention alongside usual care on treatment outcomes in forensic psychiatric outpatients. The findings bolstered evidence that social network interventions could be effective in improving supportive social networks and treatment outcomes in psychiatric patients. For forensic psychiatric outpatients, social network interventions in which community volunteers engage in supportive relationship and social activities with outpatients, are feasible and promising in reducing hospitalization duration and criminal behavior. Altogether, the findings in this dissertation indicate that a collaboration paradigm between forensic psychiatric care and informal care – stitching the social fabric of society – could further improve treatment outcomes in patients with complex problems and care needs. However, since patient engagement was challenging, barriers and facilitators to engagement should be considered to optimize the implementation of social network interventions for individual patients in forensic psychiatric care. Furthermore, future research is warranted to identify which patients benefit from which types of social network interventions to better understand and optimize the effectiveness of social network interventions in forensic psychiatric care – towards effective personalized approaches. 3 Have you become interested in volunteering in forensic psychiatric care? The QR code below will lead you to the website of De Regenboog Groep [The Rainbow Group], where more information can be found.
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