The Western Norway Mental Health Interface Study on Referral Letters

Not Applicable

Withdrawn

• Conditions: Mental Disorders
• Interventions: Other: Quality improvement intervention

• Registration Number: NCT01374035
• Lead Sponsor: Helse Fonna

Brief Summary

The main object to this trial is to study the function of referral letters as a mean to coordinate the care process for adult people when referred from Primary Care to Specialised Mental Health Care. The study will explore if and to what degree the quality of these referral letters can be improved, and the potential improvement's impact on defined patient-, professional and organisational related outcomes. According to Medical Research Council guidelines for evaluating complex interventions, a stepwise design with the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to conduct a controlled intervention study.

Detailed Description

The study is based on a stepwise progression including four steps. Within step one group interview with four mixed groups of health professionals (both Primary and Specialised Care), patient representatives and managers will be conducted. The groups will give input on firstly, what information they think is important to include in the referral letters, and secondly, what impact they think improved referral letters can have for the organisation and care within Specialised Mental Health Care. Within step two a validated check-list to assess the quality of referral letters will be developed. Within step three outcome measures will be developed and tested. Both step two and three will make use of the results from step one in addition to existing literature and testing. Step four is the intervention study where measures from the former steps will be used.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2010-08-01
• Study First Submitted: 2011-04-28
• Study First Submitted QC: 2011-06-14
• Study First Posted: 2011-06-15
• Primary Completion: 2016-06-22
• Study Completion: 2019-12-13
• Status Verified: 2020-02
• Last Update Submitted: 2020-02-11
• Last Update Posted: 2020-02-13

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: WITHDRAWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: Not specified

Inclusion Criteria

• Referral letters send from a GP to Public Specialised Mental Health Care
• Referrals for elective assessment or treatment

Exclusion Criteria

• Referral letters send from other health personnel
• Referrals for acute care (within 24 hours)

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Participating GPs	Quality improvement intervention	GPs working at randomly selected GP centers/offices within the region that are invited to participate and signs a written informed consent to participate. (N=30-40)

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Length of stay	Day of discharge assessed up to six months	From date of admission or onset of out-patient treatment until date of discharge (documented in Electronic Patient Record as end of treatment periode), assessed up to six months from admission.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Response time for referral letters in Specialised Mental Health Care	Referral letters will be followed for the duration of the assessment and prioritation process until response letter is sent, an expected avarage of 10 days.	Unit of measure: Number of days from receiving a referral letter to the response letter is sent to the patient and the General Practitioner. The response time for all letters recieved in a six month periode before the intervention to improve the quality of referral letters will be compared with the response time after the intervention.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Helse Fonna Local Health Authorities; 🇳🇴 Haugesund, Norway