[The patient and family satisfaction with the department of mental health in Rome]

Abstract

Objective: Satisfaction's measurement with Mental Health Services in patients and their relatives.

Design: Satisfaction scale administration to the patients who were treated in community-based psychiatric service from 1.1.1996 to 31.3.1996 and the relatives who were primarily involved in caring for the patient.

Setting: The ASL Rome "C" community-based psychiatric service.

Main outcome measures: Verona Service Satisfaction Scale-54, a multidimensional instrument which measure satisfaction with community-based psychiatric service.

Results: Main results (301 scales for patients, 163 scales for relatives), pointed out for patients a higher satisfaction for the technical and interpersonal skills of psychiatrists and psychologists (score of specific items > 4). Lowest scores of satisfaction were towards the appearance, comfort level and physical layout of the facility (score 2.95) and towards the response of the service to emergencies during the night, weekend and Bank Holidays (score 2.87). Relatives were not particularly keen for the item regarding help to find open employment (score 2.76). Furthermore patients and their relatives gave a negative evaluation of the publicity and information offered by Mental Health Services. Dimension's analysis reaches the same conclusions deduced items's average score. The result of this study emphasizes the patients higher degree of satisfaction than the relatives.

Conclusions: The above results point out three aspects to be improved by the Mental Health Service in order to satisfy the demands of the patients and relatives: 1. appearance, comfort level and physical layout of the facility, 2. publicity and information, 3. social activities and social skills.