On an 8-bed adolescent psychiatric unit, 69 patients were rated over the course of more than one year [corrected]. A set of rating scales was used to determine the relationships of treatment and therapeutic alliance difficulties with staff ratings of patient qualities, family issues, and treatment outcome. Findings underscore the clinical relevance of treatment difficulty and therapeutic alliance in conceptualizing the therapeutic action of the hospital treatment.

Patient satisfaction is increasingly used as an indicator of health care quality. Few measures are available to assess characteristics unique to inpatient psychiatric hospitals, especially those that provide longer-term care. Furthermore, there is limited guidance on how to utilize patient satisfaction data to guide quality improvement initiatives. The authors developed the 20-item, Menninger Quality of Care measure at The Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas. Psychometric analyses were based on responses from 337 adult inpatients. The measure has excellent internal reliability (Cronbach α=0.92) with adequate concurrent and construct validity. We present a methodology to identify targeted quality improvement efforts by (1) highlighting the perspective of patients who are generally satisfied but had at least some reservations regarding the care they received and (2) highlighting areas of concern that are most associated with overall quality of care. We discuss our findings in light of national health care quality trends.

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