Day centres and day hospitals

What are day centres?

Day treatment programs and day hospitals are medically focused community-based units, often described as an intermediary between inpatient and outpatient hospital care. This type of program provides a more engaged, integrated treatment service than traditional outpatient units and incorporate diagnostic, medical/psychiatric, psychosocial, and prevocational treatment services.

What is the evidence for day centre programs?

Moderate to low quality evidence suggests there may be a longer duration of treatment in day hospitals compared to inpatient care. There appears to be no benefit of day hospitals over outpatient care for reducing hospital readmissions. Low quality evidence is unable to determine any benefit for global state, employment, mental state, or social functioning.

September 2020

Last updated at: 3:11 am, 11th September 2020
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Fact Sheet Technical Commentary
Tags:  Outpatient care

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