Satisfaction with psychiatric in-patient care across 11 countries: Final report of the IDEA-study (inpatient discharge: experiences and analysis)

Introduction Satisfaction of patients with in-patient care is a relatively rare focus of research in mental health. Objectives The IDEA-study (inpatient discharge: experiences and analysis) was initiated to shed the light on the issue internationally. Aim The IDEA project aimed to: – develop a collaborative network of young psychiatrists; – use this network to explore satisfaction of people treated in psychiatric in-patient facilities in a range of high-, middle- and low-income countries. Methods Study was conducted in 25 hospitals across 11 countries. We measured satisfaction with in-patient care using the 5-item study-specific questionnaire. Individual and institution level correlates of “low satisfaction” were examined by comparisons of binary and multivariate associations in multilevel regression models. Results A final study sample consisted of 673 participants. Total satisfaction scores were highly skewed towards positive responses. After taking clustering into account, the only independent correlates of low satisfaction were schizophrenia diagnosis and low psychiatrist to patient ratio. Conclusion We could successfully establish a collaborative network of early career psychiatrists from different parts of the world and collect data in regards to the study aims. The positive skew of satisfaction scores need to be carefully considered in the context of literature and study limitations. In particularly, we suggest further studies on patients’ satisfaction to pay more attention to treatment expectations formed by the previous experience of treatment, service-related knowledge, stigma and patients’ disempowerment, power imbalance.