First National Report on Patients of Mental Health Clinics

Abstract

A NATIONWIDE program of statistical J L reporting for outpatient psychiatric clinics was established in July 1954 by the Na,tional Institute of Mental Health in cooperation with the State mental health authorities. The purpose of tllis reporting is to provide a nucleus of uniform data on outpatient psychiatric services to aid in planning programs and facilities on a national, State, and community basis. These data also aid clinics in reviewing their own operations. As a practical first step, reporting is limited to the mental health clinics with outpatient services and a psychiatrist in attendance at regularly scheduled hours who takes the medical responsibility for all clinic patients. The first publications derived from the reporting program were a national directory of clinics (1) and a monograph describing the characteristics and staff of outpatient psychiatric clinics (2) based on data submitted for 1954-55 by more than 95 percent of the clinics in the United States. In this article we are summarizing for the firs,t time national data reported on the characteristics of clinic patients and the services they receive based on information for 1955-56. Several State mental health authorities have issued reports on the data submitted by clinics operating in their jurisdictions (3-7). A national report on the community service activities of outpatient psychiatric clinics will be published later. Although the national statistical program limits requested data on patients to a minimum of basic items of information, collection is difficult. The complex and varied pattern of outpatient psychiatric service causes many problems of definition. To yield uniform data, the definition of a patient, type of service, and diagnostic classifications in particular continue to require review and modification. In many instances it was necessary to install new clinic recordkeeping systems and mechanical tabulating procedures at the State level (8). As a result, by 1956 only 499, or 39 percent, of the 1,294 outpatient psychiatric clinics in the United States were reporting information about their patients. The number of clinics reporting, by type of clinic and by State, is shown in table 1. Data on patients were reported for some but not all clinics in most of the States. Reporting procedures have since been established for the clinics of the Veterans Administration, the clinics in New York State, and additional clinics in other States. Since the clinics that reported in 1956 are not Mrs. Bahn is chief and Miss Norman is a staff analytical statistician, Outpatient Studies Section, Biometrics Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service.