Key message

During the autumn of 2006 the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services conducted a survey of the next-of-kin of children and adolescents receiving outpatient psychiatric service. In total, 7906 next-of-kin responded to questions about their experiences with the service. The survey had a 46% response rate and representativeness was satisfactory.

Three reports are available; the present report with main results, a methods report, and a report describing results by institutions. Next-of-kin report mainly positive experiences with the outpatient service.

The results are aggregated in three main dimensions describing therapists, information/involvement, and outcome. On a scale from 0 to 100, where high scores are favourable, national level results varied from 59 for information/ involvement to 75 for therapists. For outcome the score was 72. The results varied among topics that were not included in the dimensions. For example: 43% answered that they waited too long or far too long for the service; 65% answered that the number of consultations offered were appropriate; and, 47% perceived to a large or very large extent that the co-operation between the therapists and other organisations was good.

Scores were generally positive across all of the Regional Health Authorities and the differences between the regions are small. The Eastern Region scored significantly higher than the mean of the remaining regions on the therapist and information/involvement dimensions. Scores for the therapist dimension for Central Region were significantly lower than the mean of the remaining region. There were few statistically significant differences when comparisons were made at trust level.

The results varied between the different outpatient clinics for all the dimensions. The largest variation was for information/ influence, with a score range from 48 to 68.However, there were few statistically significant differences between single outpatient clinics and the national mean for the three dimensions.