An abbreviated questionnaire for quantifying treatment requests from Dutch outpatients

What do patients want and do we want to know? A review of patients' requests of psychiatric services

OBJECTIVE

A systematic review was conducted of the literature concerning patients' requests of psychiatric care in order to identify the types of requests patients make, psychiatrists' perceptions of their patients' requests, and the relationship between requests and the outcome of care.

METHOD

A total of 28 published original articles which fulfilled specific inclusion criteria were reviewed.

RESULTS

The studies showed that there are certain core requests that patients make irrespective of the type of service attended. Patients mainly request psychological approaches, and the most common requests are for 'clarification', 'psychological expertise' and 'psychodynamic insight'. There is evidence that patients normally feel inhibited about making requests, and that psychiatrists often fail to identify what their patients want.

CONCLUSION

The majority of patients attending psychiatric services have requests which they will express when encouraged to do so, but little is known about the relationship between patients' requests and the outcome of care. Recommendations are made for future research.

Feasibility of computerized psychological testing with psychiatric outpatients

The feasibility of computerized psychological testing was investigated in a sample of 452 consecutive psychiatric outpatients. Forty-six percent of the solicited patients agreed to participate in the computerized assessment. Tested patients were significantly younger and better educated than those who refused. In general, patients reacted favorably to the computerized assessment. Education level, previous experience with computers, and attitude toward computers were related to successful patient-computer interaction. It is concluded that computerized assessment is not feasible for all psychiatric outpatients and that a pre- (computer) assessment interview may be helpful in order to familiarize older and less educated patients with the nature and functions of computerized psychological assessment.