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A national survey of psychiatric day hospitals

Research Assistant

Rosemarie McCabe

Senior Research Fellow

^*Stefan Priebe

Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist and Chair of Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry, Bart’s and The London School of Medicine, Queen Mary, University of London

Thomas Kallert

Consultant Psychiatrist, Department of Psychiatry, Dresden University of Technology, Germany

Declaration of interest

This study was funded by the European Commission and the NHS North Thames Regional Executive.

AIMS AND METHOD

We conducted a postal questionnaire survey of all psychiatric day hospitals in England to identify the range of aims, organisational structure and content of service provision.

RESULTS

Of 102 identified day hospitals, 77% responded to the questionnaire. The findings confirmed that there is great heterogeneity in English day hospital service provision. The function or aim with the highest mean rating was ‘providing an alternative to in-patient care’, with 66% of day hospitals giving this a rating of great or greatest importance. However, the majority of respondents prioritised multiple roles, with many day hospitals aiming to provide acute and chronic care concurrently.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

The label ‘day hospital’ covers a considerable range of community psychiatric services. The heterogeneity of service provision in existing day hospitals could lead to difficulties in generalising research findings on day hospital efficacy.

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