Mental Health Consumer Perceptions of Care Surveys
In the Fall of 2003, the Division of Mental Hygiene (DMH) launched its quality improvement initiative, Quality IMPACT (Improving Mental Hygiene Programs and Communities Together) with two public forums. Quality IMPACT aims to improve the quality of mental hygiene services in New York City through a data-driven continuous quality improvement process. Many stakeholders including consumers, providers, family members, and advocates attended the public forums. Across all stakeholder groups, consumer perceptions of care were rated the most important outcome measures of system quality.
Consumer perceptions of care surveys are increasingly being used in the mental health community to assess the quality of services and to develop strategies to improve those services. Research has demonstrated that satisfied mental health consumers are more likely to accept care, adhere to treatment recommendations and, therefore, have more positive clinical outcomes.
DMH selected the Mental Health Statistics Improvement Program (MHSIP) Adult Consumer Survey, a nationally recognized instrument that has been found to be statistically reliable and valid. This survey was developed for use in the public mental hygiene system and is now widely used by state and local governments in both chemical dependency and mental health programs. The MHSIP survey assesses four areas of consumer perceptions: overall satisfaction; access to services; quality and appropriateness of services; and consumer reported outcomes. Each survey question has five response options from "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree." For more information about the MHSIP Adult Consumer Survey, see MHSIP.
In 2004, prior to the first administration of the survey, the Division convened a workgroup of chemical mental health stakeholders to assist in the detailed planning of survey implementation and data collection.
The DMH mental health survey form includes several demographic questions (e.g., age, sex, race/ethnicity), and is available in eight languages: English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Chinese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Khmer (Cambodian), Bengali, Farsi and Hindi. Survey forms are two-sided (front and back), and are in a scannable format to ensure the speed and accuracy of the data analysis.
DMH expects programs to obtain at least a 50% response rate. The response rate is defined as:
Total # of adult consumers (18 or older) who
complete the survey during designated 2-week period.
Total # of unduplicated adult consumers who
are seen at the program during the 2-week period.
Each year, DMH makes results available to providers after data are analyzed using standardized MHSIP scoring procedures. DMH strongly recommends that participating programs share the survey findings with staff and use the findings to help target areas for improvement.
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OUTPATIENT MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT PROGRAMS:
FY08 (7/1/07 – 6/30/08)
In FY08, participation in the mental health consumer preceptions of care survey was mandatory for all deficit-funded and COPS programs in the following categories:
- Mental Health Clinic Treatment Programs
- Mental Health Continuing Day Treatment (CDT) Programs
- Mental Health Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation (IMPRT) Programs
- Mental Health Partial Hospitalization Programs
In November 2007, 169 outpatient mental health treatment programs administered the survey. The providers returned 18,320 completed surveys to DMH. The average response rate across programs was 66%.
In addition, 1 partial hospitalization program and 2 IPRT programs paticipated in the survey.
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