Patients' satisfaction with community treatment: a pilot cross-sectional survey adopting multiple perspectives.

Abstract

Patients' satisfaction is scarcely studied within the context of community treatment for adolescents. Thus, this study adopts a multiple perspective on patients' satisfaction (including service users as well as staff members). The results highlighted that all informants (patients, foster carers in foster homes and professional caregivers from community treatment teams) perceived the patients to be satisfied, with foster carers reporting the highest patient satisfaction rate. Considering the patient satisfaction rate from multiple perspectives provides complementary understandings. Clinical outcomes and, specifically, a reduction in emotional difficulties were related to patient's satisfaction, but only from the patients' perspective. Community treatment (CT) teams in Switzerland provide care to patients who are unable to use regular child and adolescent mental health services (i.e. inpatient and outpatients facilities). No study has considered patients' self-rated satisfaction alongside with staff members' perspectives on patient satisfaction. Thus, adopting a cross-sectional survey design, we collected patients' satisfaction using the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8), rated by multiple informants (patients, foster carers in foster homes and professional caregivers from CT teams). Professional caregivers assessed clinical outcomes using the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale for Children and Adolescents. The results indicated that all informants were satisfied with the community treatment teams. The satisfaction scores were not correlated across informants; however, the alleviation of emotional symptoms was correlated with patients' satisfaction. This study indicated that the use of a combined approach including the views of service users and professionals gives important complementary information. Finally, in our sample, lower emotional symptoms were linked to enhanced patient satisfaction. This study demonstrated the importance of considering multiple perspectives to obtain the most accurate picture of patients' satisfaction. Second, focusing on the reduction of emotional symptoms might lead to a higher degree of patients' satisfaction.