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Qual Saf Health Care 2003;12:85-86
© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group & Institute for Healthcare Improvement

COMMENTARY

Quality of care in mental health

Quality indicators for mental health in primary care: how far have we got?

D J Sharp

Professor of Primary Health Care, University of Bristol, Cotham House, Bristol BS6 6JL; debbie.sharp@bristol.ac.uk

The development of valid indicators to assess the quality of care for mental health is a challenge for primary care organisations.

Keywords: internet; online drug information

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Quality of care—be it at the level of the institution or the individual healthcare professional—is at the core of the modernisation of the NHS,1 but nowhere is it more difficult to measure and assess than in the area of mental health. Unlike diabetes mellitus and, to some extent, coronary artery disease where there is good agreement on the absolute threshold for making the diagnosis and increasing consensus as to what processes constitute high quality care (e.g. retinal screening, use of aspirin), the definite diagnosis of a mental health problem and agreement on its optimum management is much less clear. This is particularly so for the large burden of mainly undifferentiated mental illness that presents in primary care. Although undifferentiated, it should not be assumed that the severity and accompanying functional impairment are not insubstantial. We are not, as some might assert, dealing with the . . . [Full text of this article]


Related Article

Quality indicators for primary care mental health services
T Shield, S Campbell, A Rogers, A Worrall, C Chew-Graham, and L Gask
Qual. Saf. Health Care 2003 12: 100-106. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]





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