title: Discharged rehabilitation patients: impact of follow-up surveillance by a friendly visitor.
abstract: The period after hospital discharge is the most critical for rehabilitation patients returning to a community setting. A friendly visitor surveillance program using nonprofessional volunteers was designed to monitor treatment regimen compliance by alerting medical professionals of impending crises among discharged rehabilitation patients. A randomized experimental design was used to evaluate the impact of 1 year of program exposure on rehospitalization, service use, and psychosocial outcomes experienced by 142 patients. Patients were randomized into 3 groups: friendly visitors (FV) and biannual nursing visits; biannual nursing (RN) visits only; and controls (CON). Over 1/3 of the sample was rehospitalized at least once during the 1-year impact period, yet no differences were found across experimental groups nor patients' diagnostic category. No meaningful pattern of significant differences between the groups was observed at the p less than 0.1 probability level in any of the other outcome areas. The need to alert the medical system of impending patient problems occurred rarely, suggesting that existing informal support systems and regular use of medical services may be sufficient to monitor rehabilitation patients' progress.
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000359:Aftercare; D000368:Aged; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006699:Home Care Services; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010351:Patient Discharge; D010359:Patient Readmission; D011788:Quality of Life; D011897:Random Allocation; D012046:Rehabilitation; D014838:Volunteers