Home or away: which patients are suitable for a psychiatric home treatment service?
2001
AIMS AND METHOD Home treatment offers an alternative to in-patient care, but little has
been written about the practicalities of running such a service. Using routine
information sources, details of referral and outcome are presented for
patients assessed by a home treatment service over 6 months. RESULTS Forty-eight per cent of referrals were not accepted, mainly because of lack
of cooperation, risk to self or others or the illness not being acute enough.
Referrals from junior doctors and accident & emergency were least likely
to be accepted. Seventy-two per cent of patients accepted suffered from
schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder or depression with psychosis,
similar to the diagnoses for in-patients. Twenty per cent of patients accepted
had to be transferred to in-patient care later. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS Staffing levels need to take account of time spent assessing patients.
Junior doctors need training in how to use home treatment services
appropriately and a wider range of options are needed to manage patients in
crisis out of hours. It is possible to target patients with severe mental
illness in a home treatment setting, but a significant number will need
transfer to inpatient care.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
7
References
32
Citations
NaN
KQI