Effectiveness Analysis of Home Care Service for Psychiatric Patients

• Main Authors: Hsiao-Fen Hsu, 許曉芬
• Other Authors: Jeremy C. Ying
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92dv62

碩士 === 義守大學 === 醫務管理學系 === 105 === Background: To implement the policies of the deinstitutionalization, developing an effective community-based service model is an essential part of a modern mental health system. However, the costs and care burden for both the caregivers and official medical care system are still higher than we expected. Purpose: The study was trying to explore the effectiveness of the hospital-based psychiatric home care service in a medical center of southern Taiwan, for the purpose of improving the current care model among the patients with schizophrenia. Methods: We applied a retrospective design had study during the period from January 2006 to December 2015. The participants who had received home care services for more than one year were enrolled. The primary outcomes were the numbers of acute ward admissions and the duration of each admission. The comparison of the main outcomes was to analyze before and after the enrolled date within a 1-year period. Results: The mean age of participants was 32.68. The most common treatment strategy for the participants receiving the home care service was long-acting injection of antipsychotics (83.3% of all participants). After adjusting the possible confounding factors such as the medication use, the major result of the current study was statistically significant decreases in both the numbers of acute admissions and the duration of each admission among the patients with schizophrenia who received home care service for the first period. Conclusion: The study revealed that even short-term home care service would be helpful to improve the re-hospitalized rate and the duration needed for admission among the patients with schizophrenia. However, due to the shortcomings of the pre-post study, further randomized, controlled trials are necessary.