Determinants of satisfaction with community-based psychiatric services: A cross-sectional study among schizophrenia outpatients

This was a cross-sectional study investigating factors related to satisfaction with care among long-term mentally ill patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, selected from an outpatient register. Demographic factors, personality variables, and health-related factors were related to their satisfaction with care. Satisfaction with care showed no relationships to demographic factors such as age, living conditions, or civil status. However, significant associations indicated that patients who had never been hospitalized for mental illness, who were native Swedes, or who had an independent living rated their satisfaction with care higher. Personality, measured with the Temperament and Character Inventory, showed a relationship to satisfaction with care on only one dimension, self-directedness, of seven. Some of the results indicated a relationship between subjective measures and satisfaction with care, and some did not, but, taken together, the findings suggested a partial influence from a subjective factor on both subjective measures of well-being and on satisfaction with care. However, associations between interviewer-rated measures of health-related variables and satisfaction with care proposed that the better-functioning patients were more satisfied with the care, in turn indicating that the services better suited these patients. Thus, assuming that the influence of treatment was controlled for through the selection of long-term mentally ill subjects, this study pointed to two determinants of satisfaction with care: a. selectively working subjective factor and the services being better designed for the better-functioning patients.