Measuring use of outpatient care among mentally ill individuals: a comparison of self reports and provider records

Psychiatric nurses administered structured interviews to 80 clients in a co unty mental health clinic. Clients were asked to describe their use of medi cal and psychiatric outpatient care services during a 180-day period. Respo nses were compared with medical records abstracted from a comprehensive lis ting of health care providers. Taken as a group, clients reported only slig htly more visits than that found in medical records. Individually, however, client responses were poor predictors of visits reported in provider recor ds. Those considered low utilizers by providers tended to overstate, and hi gh utilizers tended to understate, the number of outpatient visits. Reporti ng validity did not vary with client demographic characteristics or psychia tric diagnoses. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.