Recent treatment history vs clinical characteristics in the prediction of use of outpatient psychiatric services.
BACKGROUND
The use of outpatient psychiatric services has been shown to be a complex function of sociodemographic, clinical, and pathway variables. The relative contribution of each variable or groups of variables in explaining the variability in the use of outpatient psychiatric services, however, remains poorly documented.


METHODS
The subjects (N=382) were all patients admitted to an outpatient psychiatric clinic serving mostly a minority and low-income population. The charts of the patients were reviewed for sociodemographic, clinical, and pathway variables and the number of outpatient visits. The pathway variables studied were source of referral and most recent psychiatric treatment service used. Both bivariate and multivariate statistics were used to analyze the data.


RESULTS
Pathway variables were better predictors of the number of outpatient visits than clinical variables after controlling for sociodemographic variables.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients recently hospitalized may be sicker or have fewer social supports and therefore require more outpatient visits. Recent treatment history stands out as an important variable in the prediction of the number of outpatient mental health visits. More research is needed to examine the influence of pathway variables on treatment decisions.
de Figueiredo
John M
JM
Dept. of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, PO Box 573, Cheshire, CT 06410-0573, USA.
Boerstler
Heidi
H
Doros
Gheorghe
G
D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D011446:Prospective Studies; D014481:United States