Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T02:37:08.160Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Too high a hurdle? the use of pre-assessment questionnaires in psychotherapy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Terri Eynon
Affiliation:
Uffculme Clinic, Moseley, Birmingham B13 8QD
Stephen Gladwell
Affiliation:
Uffculme Clinic, Moseley, Birmingham B13 8QD
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Up to one third of patients referred for psychotherapy fail to attend for their first appointment (O'Loughlin, 1990). Psychotherapy assessments are usually allocated a considerable portion of uninterrupted time, and an unexpected non-attendance wastes significant clinical resources. A variety of strategies have been used to ensure that assessors are not left waiting for a patient who never comes. One method is to send out forms which must be completed and returned before a first appointment date is given. In O'Loughlin's study, in which a similar questionnaire to that detailed in this paper was used, it was suggested that sending a pre-appointment questionnaire reduced the default rate.

Type
Audit in practice
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

References

Feldman, M. M. (1992) Audit in psychotherapy: the concept of Kaizen. Psychiatric Bulletin, 16, 334336.Google Scholar
Holmes, J. & Lindley, R. (1989) The unjust distribution of psychotherapy. In The Values of Psychotherapy, pp. 6894. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O'Loughlin, S. (1990) The effect of a pre-appointment questionnaire on clinical psychologist attendance rates. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 63, 59.Google Scholar
Parry, , (1992) Improving psychotherapy services: applications of research, audit and evaluation. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 31, 319.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.