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Client evaluation of assisted outpatient treatment services

Background

Complementing the view of treatment professionals and health care experts, the perspective of mentally ill patients themselves on the treatment they receive is a relevant factor in mental health care. Today, the satisfaction of these patients with their treatment is seen as a central aspect of service quality. Patient satisfaction has become an important component of psychiatric mental health care evaluation: satisfaction with services and treatment can determine such important treatment aspects as continuity and outcome. However, the impact of compulsory community treatment on patients' satisfaction with their treatment is unclear.

Methods

This research addresses this question, focusing on how perceived coercion into treatment influences patients' satisfaction with treatment services. It first compares treatment satisfaction of (a) patients committed to outpatient treatment and (b) patients in regular voluntary outpatient treatment. This research then examines the role of satisfaction in treatment (dis)continuity, and whether psychiatric patients who are generally satisfied with their treatment continue treatment more than do dissatisfied psychiatric patients. Finally, this research examines systematic associations between patient satisfaction and psychotic symptoms, violent behavior, and perceived stigma of mental illness.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Berghofer, G. Client evaluation of assisted outpatient treatment services. BMC Psychiatry 7 (Suppl 1), S87 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-7-S1-S87

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-7-S1-S87

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