Information sharing following discharge of psychiatric inpatients: improving the quality of discharge summaries
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Discharge summaries are valuable clinical documents providing information not only about the acute presentation and progression but also suggestions for future management to maintain the continuity of care. This is important in multidisciplinary, multiagency mental healthcare. AIM: It was intended to evaluate the discharge summaries for adult psychiatric inpatients, about the information shared such as the reason for admission, diagnoses, medications, progress in the ward, and legal status with an overarching aim to inform about the quality improvement of discharge summaries. METHODS: It was a service evaluation of a stratified random sample of 86 discharges from younger adult psychiatry wards, from which 73 discharge summaries were evaluated. RESULTS: The sample had 44 male and 42 female patients, with an average inpatient stay of 27.3 ± 40.8 days. Most (81.4%) of the patients had informal admission. Most patients (96.5%) had a psychiatric diagnosis; the common diagnoses were schizophrenia (24.4%), bipolar disorder (15.1%), personality disorder (17.4%), and depression (11.6%). Discharge summaries were sent on an average of 21.3 + 17.7 days (median 15 days). Most discharge summaries mentioned psychiatric diagnoses (97.3%), list of medications and dosage (95.9%), legal status during admission (74.0%), reason for admission (97.3%), and progress in the ward (97.3%). CONCLUSIONS: There is a scope to improve discharge summaries by adopting an appropriately structured format containing essential clinical information, which can be useful for maintaining continuity of patient care.Citation
Kar N. (2024) Information sharing following discharge of psychiatric inpatients: Improving the quality of discharge summaries. Odisha Journal of Psychiatry, 20(1), pp. 24-29.Publisher
Wolters Kluwer – MedknowJournal
Odisha Journal of PsychiatryAdditional Links
https://journals.lww.com/odjp/fulltext/2024/01000/information_sharing_following_discharge_of.5.aspxType
Journal articleLanguage
enDescription
© 2024 The Author. Published by Wolters Kluwer Medknow. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://journals.lww.com/odjp/fulltext/2024/01000/information_sharing_following_discharge_of.5.aspxISSN
2950-5992ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.4103/OJP.OJP_10_24
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/