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Satisfaction of attenders and non-attenders with their treatments at psychiatric out-patient clinics

Royal Free Hospital, London

Sube Banerjee, Senior Lecturer^*

Section of Epidemiology and General Practice, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF

^* Correspondence

Aims and method Non-attendance at psychiatric out-patient appointments has a substantial financial cost, and may also have clinical significance. To prevent non-attendance and formulate effective responses, its determinants need to be understood. Patient dissatisfaction with services has been suggested as a reason for non-attendance, we therefore investigated the role of patient satisfaction in attendance at psychiatric out-patients appointments. All patients booked for adult psychiatric out-patient follow-up appointments in a three-month period were studied using a brief, self-report questionnaire.

Results Sixty-three per cent (340/538) of attenders and 54% (118/219) of non-attenders responded. Responders expressed high levels of satisfaction with their treatment (92% attenders, 91% non-attenders) and with the service (96% attenders, 92% non-attenders). Despite adequate statistical power, there were no statistically significant differences in satisfaction between the two groups.

Clinical implications In conclusion, patient satisfaction with psychiatric out-patient care was reported to be relatively high and did not seem to be an important determinant of non-attendance.

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