Abstract
Background
The practice of the assessment of mental health care quality is currently under development in Latvia. Clinic ‘Veldre’ (2012) is one of the only two community – based mental health care centers in Latvia. The quality of clinic ‘Veldre’ has never been assessed. To assess the quality of care for patients with schizophrenia of the ‘Veldre’ clinic’s outpatient department.
Methods
The retrospective, descriptive, real-life pilot study was performed. Medical chart analysis was performed and the following indicators were assessed in 30 randomly selected schizophrenia outpatients (aged 21–65; 15 male (50%, mean age 45), 15 female (50%, mean age 50): rehospitalization, frequent hospitalization (more than once per year), long-stayers rate (more than 28 days of hospital care), received outpatient care; suicide and mortality rate. Statistical data analysis was performed, correlations were found.
Results
Results demonstrate weak positive correlations between male gender and (a) rehospitalisation rate (Sperman's rank correlation (rs) −0.27) and (b) long term hospitalisation (Spearmans's rank correlation (rs) 0.27).
Conclusions
Future research is needed to explore the gender differences in mental health care quality indicators.