A simple method of evaluating patients' perceptions of their treatment andcare

Surveys of patient satisfaction have become commonplace in mental health se rvices. However, questions about the appropriateness of "satisfaction" as a concept and its use as an approach to evaluating the quality of service pr ovision remain as pertinent as ever. Although surveys of patients of mental health services routinely generate high levels of apparent satisfaction, n oncompliance with treatment and medication continues to be a major difficul ty in psychiatric care. To evaluate services properly, there is a need to a ccess patients' dissatisfaction to determine whether it is a more valid ind icator of quality of services and a better predictor of noncompliance. Howe ver, a method that is not time consuming and costly is also required. The a uthors introduce a new patient evaluation tool, "Your Treatment and Care," which requires patients to report on their direct experience of care accord ing to a set of principles of good practice. The fool forms part of a broad er package for obtaining patients' views of their own problems, need for ca ve, quality of care received, and health and social outcomes. The authors a lso report the results of a survey using this tool. Responses of 75 patient s of a psychiatric hospital in the United States are presented and compared with results from a similar survey in the United Kingdom. The comparisons show striking differences in patients' perceptions of quality of treatment and care, both within each population and across clinical contexts.