Patient feedback on satisfaction with direct services received at a community mental health center: A two-year study.

Abstract

Three to eleven months after termination of therapeutic service, adolescent and adult patients from two successive years at a new mental health center evaluated the help they received. Less then 15% of them felt that they had not been helped by therapy. These former patients were primarily non-YA VIS types from an essentially blue-collar rural county. Replicated results illustrated that the more the former patients felt that the therapists were interested in them, the more they felt helped. The necessity of research in the age of accountability was discussed along with other pertinent issues.

Client Satisfaction With Mental Health Treatment

“…Such ambiguous response alternatives permit great leeway in the interpretation of results and thus allow the bias of the investigator a prominent role. For example, Kirchner (1981) reported 87% of clients in an outpatient setting felt helped, even though 25% of thse respondents had checked the choice point &dquo;helped a little.&dquo; Being helped &dquo;a little&dquo; is a statement of faint praise, but these responses were summed with those that are unambiguously positive. Greater care is needed in the choice of response alternatives.…”

“…Important aspects of method are not reported, making it impossible to evaluate the quality of research. Positive results are often exaggerated, especially through failure to qualify the limits of findings (e.g., Kirchner, 1981). Such design, data analysis, and reporting has severely limited the investigation of consumer satisfaction.…”

Patient feedback on satisfaction with direct services received at a community mental health center: A partial replication.

“…All patients from the current sample were serviced between July 1, 1978, andJune 30,1979. Variables studied in the present and past research were perceived degree of help through counseling or therapy, perceived interest of the therapist in the patient, perceived seriousness of the problem, behavior after termination, age, sex, marital status, and number of therapy sessions. These variables have been defined elsewhere (Kirchner, 1981). It was not possible because of missing face sheet data to study the income and education variables in the current research.…”

“…Consequently, Parloff (1979) has questioned the utility of much previous research in psychotherapy to policymakers and practitioners. Studies by Edwards et al (1979) and by Kirchner (1981), which were conducted in community mental health centers, are exceptions to the general trend. Results of both studies supported the concept that the poor benefited as much from psychotherapy as do Appreciation is extended to Steven V. Brull, Grinnell College, who served as research assistant at the Center on this project, and to Dr. Thomas Moberg, Director of Computer Services, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, for his consultation.…”

“…Morrison (1979) has augured for a consumer oriented approach to psychotherapy which included patient feedback as an evaluative criterion of services. Kirchner (1981) reported that less then 15% of former patients felt that they had not been helped to some extent by therapy. In two successive years, 1975-76 and 1976-77, he found that former patients felt that the more the therapists were interested in them, the more they felt helped.…”