Authors: Justin Scanlan, Nicola Hancock, Anne Honey
Year: 2017
Event: 2017 TheMHS Conference
Subject: Clinical Issues,Service Systems, Delivery, Implementation,Research & Evaluation Informing Practice
Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers
Abstract: The period immediately following discharge from psychiatric admissions is risky in terms of readmission, suicide and service disengagement. Hospital to Home (H2H) was a One Door Mental Health (previously Schizophrenia Fellowship), pilot peri-discharge (just before and just after discharge) support program, designed to avoid these negative outcomes. All H2H workers had lived experience of mental illness.
An external evaluation of the H2H program was undertaken by researchers from the University of Sydney. A range of process, outcome and satisfaction measures were collected and analysed.
Sixty-four individuals were supported during the pilot and 38 agreed to participate in the external evaluation. Average hospital bed days were lower for participants after H2H compared with pre-engagement bed days (estimated reduction of 11 days per year per participant). Other outcomes included improvements in the “Doing things I value” and “Mastering my illness” recovery domains and improvements in wellbeing in the “Intellectual,” “Social” and “Psychological” areas. Qualitative and quantitative feedback suggested participants valued the support offered by H2H, felt it helped them to stay out of hospital and valued the fact that support workers had their own lived experience.
Overall, this project demonstrates that a peer-delivered peri-discharge support program can have positive outcomes for consumers.
Learning Objectives
Learning Outcome 1: Participants attending this presentation will gain an understanding of the outcomes achieved by participants as part of their involvement in the Hospital to Home program as well as their feedback about those aspects of the program that were considered most helpful.
Learning Outcome 2: Avoiding negative outcomes for consumers in the post-discharge period is an important objective for all mental health services and reducing 28-day readmission is a key performance indicator. This study suggests that a peer-delivered peri-discharge support program can support positive consumer outcomes for a modest investment.
References
Lawn, S., Smith, A., & Hunter, K. (2008). Mental health peer support for hospital avoidance and early discharge: An Australian example of consumer driven and operated service. Journal of Mental Health, 17, 498-508. doi:10.1080/09638230701530242
Vigod, S. N., Kurdyak, P. A., Dennis, C. L., Leszcz, T., Taylor, V. H., Blumberger, D. M., & Seitz, D. P. (2013). Transitional interventions to reduce early psychiatric readmissions in adults: systematic review. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 202, 187-194. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.112.115030
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