Evaluation of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and postal survey in follow-up of children and adolescents discharged from psychiatric outpatient treatment: a randomized controlled trial.

Summary, in English

Systematic evaluation of child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient treatment is important but time-consuming. The aim of this paper was to study whether Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a more effective method than a questionnaire sent by post when following up outpatient treatment in child and adolescent psychiatry. Eighty patients were recruited from a child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient unit in Sweden. One parent of each of the patients was randomized to complete the BCFPI follow-up form, using either IVR (n = 40) or postal survey (n = 40) one month after discharge. The response rate for complete answers was 65% in the IVR group and 38% in the postal survey group (p = 0.014). There was less need for reminders in the IVR group (p = 0.000). IVR is a promising and cost-effective method for evaluating evidence-based treatment in child and adolescent psychiatric care.

• Author: Claes Andersson; Susanne Danielsson; Gunilla Silfverberg-Dymling; Gunnel Löndahl; Björn Axel Johansson
• Department/s: Clinical Health Promotion Centre; Faculty of Medicine
• Publishing year: 2014
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: SpringerPlus
• Volume: 3
• Full text: - 139 kB; Download statistics
• Links: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24567883?dopt=Abstract; http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-77
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Springer
• Topic: Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology
• Status: Published
• Research group: Clinical Health Promotion Centre
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 2193-1801