Trends in Adolescents' Satisfaction with Their Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment: A Panel Analysis over 7 Years

Abstract

Trends in Adolescents' Satisfaction with Their Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment: A Panel Analysis over 7 Years Abstract. Because the German legislature is increasingly enabling adolescents' participation in their psychiatric treatment, we traced changes in satisfaction of 6,893 patients at the end of their stay in 10 hospitals using BEST-J. The treatments resulted in a fair overall satisfaction without any improvement over the 7 years studied. In seven hospitals, we calculated deviation from the overall satisfaction based on annual surveys. Satisfaction with the psychotherapeutic relationship was good from the beginning, whereas the relationship with caregivers improved during the sample period. When new legal standards were introduced, we measured an improvement in some items concerning patient participation (coercive measures information, goals of treatment discussed). Patients were less satisfied with the information about their illness than with medication information. Initially poor satisfaction with leave regulations significantly improved over time. Respect for privacy also improved. Satisfaction with the environment and service organization scored substantially worse than the other items. Peer relations within the ward were rated close to overall satisfaction. The results point to benefits from training in psychotherapy and a growing awareness of closeness-distance issues and patients' rights. Nevertheless, psychoeducation and leave regulations require improvement. Furthermore, patients stated unmet needs for refurbishing and renovating buildings.