Lea Macdonald

Measuring Patient Satisfaction With Life in a Long-Stay Psychiatric Hospital:

A survey of patient satisfaction with physical and social conditions was carried out in the long-stay wards of a large inner city psychiatric hospital in London, Britain. Patient satisfaction was assessed by means of an administered questionnaire which was developed specifically for this purpose. Factor analysis identified eight com ponents of patient satisfaction. Of 143 eligible patients, 104 (73%) successfully completed the interview. Responses showed that patients were generally satisfied with life in the hospital, although levels of satisfaction varied significantly among wards. The factors causing greatest dissatisfaction related to failure to be treated as individuals and to feelings of isolation and apathy. Our findings showed that patients can express views about their conditions which should be useful in planning improvements in care. The questionnaire proved a simple and effective method of measuring satisfaction and may be useful to others concerned with improving the quality of the environment of patients.

Community mental health services from the user's perspective: an evaluation of the Doddington Edward Wilson (DEW) Mental Health Service

An evaluation of DEW was carried out in 1989 in terms of the stated objectives of the service providers. It was designed to assess the extent to which the service was achieving its aims from the perspective of its users -patients, carers, NHS referring agencies and collaborating nonNHS community-based services. To assure objectivity, the evaluation was done independently (LM and JO). Clinical guidance was provided by JL and EM. DEW has developed a unique operational policy and resultant working style with the following operational objectives:

Community Psychiatric Care in Italy: the Rome Example

after December, 1980. Alternative structures were to be set up, including psychiatric beds in general hospitals and integrated community psychiatric services to replace the mental hospitals. The Italian reform has been suggested by several observers as a possible basis of a model for Britain (Hepinstall, 1984; Lacy, 1984), although others have doubts about its success in its own terms, and about its transferability from the Italian social and political environment to Britain (Jones and Poletti, 1985; 1986). The reform appears to have achieved notable success in some smaller cities and towns of