Child and adolescent experience of and satisfaction with psychiatric care: a critical review of the research literature

Abstract

This review paper contributes to better understanding of child and adolescent perception of quality of psychiatric care and should therefore be of interests for those who are concerned with the development and improvement of psychiatric care. * The review shows that the concept of patient satisfaction in child and adolescent psychiatric care is still underdeveloped and that few valid instruments have been developed to measure the concept. * The review helps to clarify the concept of adolescent satisfaction with psychiatric care by indentifying the universal components of the concept. * The paper concludes that children's perception of quality of care differs from their parents' and that quality assessment of children and adolescents needs to be heeded. Abstract Users' perspectives ought to be a determining factor for assessing the quality of psychiatric care and hence their perspectives need to be thoroughly understood. There is a lack of comprehensive knowledge of how children and adolescents perceive the quality of their psychiatric care. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically review and synthesize findings from research on youth experience and satisfaction with psychiatric care. The review finds that knowledge about youth perception of quality of care is scattered and that few researchers consider previous findings. There are few valid instruments to measure child and adolescent patient satisfaction and few studies have considered these users' perceptions. These few studies indicate that adolescents' satisfaction has three universal components: satisfaction with environment and the organization of services; with user-caregiver relationship; and with treatment outcome. However, instruments that only use these factors lack sensitivity, while instruments that measure specific components of services capture differences in satisfaction between user groups. The review shows that parents and children have different mental care needs, and that the assessments by children and adolescents of their psychiatric care should be heeded.

Adolescents’ Perspectives About Brief Psychiatric Hospitalization: What is Helpful and What is Not?

“…Participants also referred to staff's competence in relaying information about the child's symptoms/illness, and maintaining structure and safety as critical helpful components. These desirable staff attributes and skills have been described in previous qualitative studies focused on youths' perspectives of mental health services/professionals in general [17,27,34,35), reinforcing the idea that the attributes of a helpful mental health professional for adolescents are similar regardless of the setting or specific population (child welfare, outpatient, inpatient). Unfortunately, one factor that gets in the way of forming or utilizing helping relationships with adults during hospitalization is the discontinuity of access to specific staff over time.…”

“…But then it's just like if somebody told you that you can do it, then you thought you could. (African American female, age 17) This sense that, ''who was working (determined) what you got to do'' (Caucasian male, age 17) was experienced as uncomfortable. Finally, a few complained that staff could have been more helpful in curbing the offensive behavior of some peers such as ''saying homophobic things'' (Hispanic female, age 18) Eleven percent described therapeutic decisions that they disagreed with and which caused them distress.…”

“…There is a general paucity of research on the subjective perspectives of child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients [17]. Most of the studies that do elicit data directly from children and adolescents (most survey parents), focus on consumer satisfaction [10,12,16,18].…”

Young children’s experiences of participating in group treatment for children exposed to intimate partner violence: A qualitative study

“…Low correlation has been shown between school-aged children's and their parents' experiences of mental health services in general, which suggests that parents cannot represent their children in questions of experience and satisfaction with mental health care (Biering, 2010;Garland, Haine, & Boxmeyer, 2007;Lambert, Salzer, & Bickman, 1998).…”

Mundos vitales de palabras: análisis del sufrimiento adolescente mediante narrativas de malestar

“…Conocer y comprender estos modelos explicativos juveniles con todas sus articulaciones y complejidades permite entender mejor sus sentires y padeceres, y los medios por medio de los cuales se configuran y afianzan en sus modos de ser y estar en el mundo. Estudios como el de Bunge, Maglio, Carrea y Entenberg, entre otros 6 , muestran que para adolescentes y jóvenes "poder expresarse" en su relación con los/as profesionales de la salud mental es un aspecto clave en la relación terapéutica, valorándolo incluso como más positivo que los progresos obtenidos (Barber, Tischler, & Healy, 2006;Biering, 2010;Bunge, Maglio, Carrea, & Entenberg, 2016); siendo clave que dicha expresión puedan realizarla empleando sus propias palabras y expresiones, en definitiva, sus propios modelos explicativos. Este conocimiento del mundo juvenil puede contribuir a mejorar las relaciones entre adultos/as (profesionales y/o familiares) y jóvenes al posibilitar la existencia de un diálogo comprensivo entre ellos/as, y un acercamiento a 6 Estudios anteriores como el de Barber et al (2006) y el de Biering (2010) hallaron resultados similares, mostrando que las habilidades comunicacionales en la relación profesionalpaciente son un aspecto crucial cuando se trata de adolescentes.…”