A Consumer Survey of two Psychiatric Day Hospitals

Abstract

The survey asked attenders at two day hospitals to rate how helpful they found different components of their therapeutic programme. One of the day hospitals was established for short‐term attendance, the other provided rehabilitation and support for long‐term attenders, who tended to be male and psychotic. The results revealed that the short‐term unit attenders rated talking to nurses as more helpful than any other activity, whilst long‐term users, in contrast, valued vocational placements and material resources. The survey was subsequently re‐administered in one unit and the results were shown to be statistically reliable. The findings are discussed with reference to how they have been used so far to improve the service in one of the day hospitals. It is concluded that the views of day attenders are an important factor in developing a quality community mental health service.

The role and use of consumer satisfaction surveys in mental health services

“…Som e have assessed satisfaction after assessm ent (Blakey et al, 1994;G owers & Kushlick, 1992), during treatment (Sheikh & M eakin, 1990;Rothwell et al, 1989)) shortly after discharge or up to 2±3 years after term ination of contact (Thom as & Hardw ick, 1989) People may be reluctant to be frank and critical while still in treatment for fear that this m ay affect their current care (Gowers & Kushlick, 1992) The longer the post-treatment time scale, the greater the probability of recall bias and consumers forgetting issues which were important during their contact with the therapist (Carr-H ill, 1992) Finally, it is important to ensure that the service provided has rem ained constant over the time period being assessed. The longer the time period, the increased probability that changes in service provision will have occurred (Locker & Dunt, 1978) W hether this be a change in staff or alterations in adm inistration services, the fact rem ains that the service being assessed will be different, and thus grouping responses together will be m eaningless.…”

“…However, a later review published by the K ings Fund of over 200 studies undertaken in the health service was able to identify only one other survey using this questionnaire (Jones et al, 1987) The past decade has, nonetheless, witnessed a growing num ber of studies assessing consumer satisfaction with mental health services in the UK. These have surveyed services located in different settings including inpatient psychiatric services (McIntyre et al, 1989;Bond et al, 1992), psychiatric day hospitals (Rothwell et al, 1989), psychiatric out-patient clinics (Jones & Lodge, 1991), ado lescen t in-p atient u nits (G ow ers & Kushlick, 1992), comm unity-based services (Dean et al, 1993: Ferguson et al, 1992: M cAuliffe & M acLaclan, 1992 and primary care services (Bucknall 1994) They have focused upon varying client groups including the elderly (Squier, 1994), adults (W arner et al, 1993), adolescents (Gowers & Kushlick, 1992), children (Dagan & Fish, 1991;Thom as & Hardwick, 1989) and the relatives of patients (Dean et al, 1993) Some have evaluated m ulti-disciplinary services (Canter, 1989;Ferguson et al, 1992), whereas others have been uni-disciplinary focusing upon clinical psychology , comm unity psychiatric nurses (Godin et al, 1987;M angen & Griffith, 1982;Thom as et al, 1991) and psychiatry (Sheikh & M eakin, 1990) A smaller number of studies have assessed referrer satisfaction, either all actual referrers (Stallard & Hudson, 1993), specifically GP referrers (Espie & W hite, 1986;Jerrom et al, 1983) or a m ixture of actual and potential referrers (M arkantonakis & M athai, 1990;Gowers et al, 1991;Kroll et al, 1995;Powell & W illiams, 1991) The vast m ajority have assessed satisfaction by postal questionnaire althoug...…”

Factors underlying a psychiatric day hospital consumer survey

“…Despite this, there has been very little empirical research published and this is an area which could well benefit from the research skills of clinical psychologists. We have recently reported the results of a survey examining user views on the therapeutic programme at two psychiatric day hospitals (Rothwell, Lorimer & McKechnie, 1989). The present report describes an extension of the analysis of the survey data from one of the hospitals, namely an examination of the underlying factor structure.…”

Multi-centred day units in a psychiatric rehabilitation service

“…The community school attenders are a distinct sub-group in that they are younger and less disabled. Rothwell et a/ (1989) looked specifically at what consumers valued about their attendance at these day facilities. Consumers rated vocational activity, help with fares and the provision of free meals as most important, highlighting the financial difficulties associated with multiple disability and high dependency needs.…”