Key message

The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services conducted the second national survey on patient experiences with adult mental health outpatient clinics during the autumn of 2007. The previous survey was conducted in 2004. In 2007, 100 outpatient clinics participated, and a total of 11 085 patients answered the questionnaire. Patients reported positive experiences with the outpatient clinics on several areas. One example is perceived outcome from individual therapy: 60 % of the patients reported a large or very large benefit from individual therapy. Patients were particularly satisfied with their clinicians. For instance, more than 70 % reported that they had the opportunity to tell the clinician everything of importance about their condition, and that the clinician understood their situation. Our study also identified several areas of improvement at the clinics, especially related to co-determination, information, and cooperation with other public services. For instance, 23 % of the patients reported that they had little or no influence on decisions related to their medication, while 25 % reported that the information about treatment options was very poor or rather poor. In addition, 30 % of the responders to a question about how their clinic cooperated with other public institutions, perceived the cooperation as very poor or rather poor. The outpatient clinics and the health enterprises they belong to were compared on three indicators concerning patient experiences at the clinic, perceived waiting time, and external cooperation. There were considerable variations in the results between clinics and between health enterprises, especially related to the indicator perceived waiting time. At the national level, scores for patient perceived quality were significantly lower in 2007 than in 2004 for the three indicators. The same pattern was found for all regional health enterprises and most of the health enterprises, but several outpatient clinics had a higher score in 2007 than in 2004 for one or more indicators.