CARE therefore aims to improve the risk evaluation for patients with a high clinical risk for psychosis, and thus to prevent the transition to a manifest psychosis and the associated reduction of psycho-social functioning. For this purpose, a new form of clinical care will be applied for the first time: Firstly, the patient’s individual risk to develop a psychosis and/or to suffer from a loss of psycho-social functioning within a year will be estimated algorithmically. Secondly, the patient will receive a preventive intervention that is adapted to his/her individual risk.

The main objective of CARE is to evaluate the effectiveness of this new instrument of preventive psychiatry in a clinical trial, complemented by a health-economical cost-benefit analysis. 

Additionally, the project explores on the ethical implications of risk detection in psychiatry as well as the ethical requirements of communicating their individual risk of developing psychosis to patients. A further aim is to investigate the effects of a computer-assisted, individualised risk prediction on the patient’s (self-) stigmatisation.

If this new form of care proves successful, i. e.  if it is effective, has a favourable cost-benefit balance and is ethically legitimate, CARE might induce the development of risk-stratified and personalised diagnostics and therapy for patients with a high risk for psychotic disorders that may ultimately be implemented into standard care.