Quality of care

What is quality of care?

Quality of care refers to the standards of treatment provided to people with schizophrenia. This topic considers not only the availability of various types of treatment, but also the factors influencing successful treatment outcomes in physical and mental health-care models.

What is the evidence for quality of care?

Moderate to low quality evidence finds essential structural indicators for ensuring high quality health care delivery include the assessment of psychiatric and somatic comorbidity, length of hospitalisations, employment outcomes, and information exchange. Essential quality indicators for patient-related assessment of treatment outcomes include the frequency of access to psychiatric care, frequency of inpatient re-admission, frequency of antipsychotic polypharmacy, long-term monitoring of antipsychotic side effects, and frequency of involuntary admissions.

Inpatient education programs are helpful, particularly for learning about schizophrenia diagnosis and medication management. Programs that involve patients in the planning and detailing of information to make them more individualised are the most helpful.

August 2020

Last updated at: 5:24 am, 17th August 2020
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Fact Sheet Technical Commentary

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Title Colour Legend:
Green - Topic summary is available.
Orange - Topic summary is being compiled.
Red - Topic summary has no current systematic review available.