A NATIONWIDE SURVEY OF OUTPATIENT PSYCHIATRIC CLINIC FUNCTIONS, INTAKE POLICIES AND PRACTICES
BEATRICE M. ROSEN 1,
JACK WIENER M.A.2,
CATHERINE L. HENCH 3,
SHIRLEY G. WILLNER 1, , and
ANITA K. BAHN Sc.D.4
1 Statistician, National Institute of Mental Health
2 National Institute of Mental Health and social worker, is Chief of the Program Analysis Section of the Community Research and Services Branch
3 Statistical staff, National Institute of Mental Health
4 Chief of the Outpatient Studies Section, Office of Biometry, National Institute of Mental Health
All clinics provided direct services to patients (the definition would exclude any who did not), with 94 percent ranking it as the primary function; consultation was most frequently rated as second in importance, training third, and research last.
Over four-fifths of the clinics reported an "open admission" policy; 12 percent accepted only other agency or professional referrals and seven percent accepted referrals within the agency only.
Three-quarters of the clinics in the country accepted psychotics and sex deviates while relatively few accepted drug addicts and homicidal cases. A wider range of problems was accepted more often in the children's clinics than in adult clinics and in the part-time clinics than in the full-time clinics.
Sixty-four percent of the clinics reported a waiting list of patients with whom they had made contact in the previous three months. Waiting lists were more prevalent in children's clinics than in adult clinics, in clinics that had an "open admission" policy than in clinics that accepted referral only within the agency and in clinics with a large staff as compared with clinics with a small staff. Eight percent of the patients served during the year were on waiting lists. Two-thirds of the persons on waiting lists were children, even though they constituted only slightly over one-third of the total patients served.
