In treatment, differing perceptions of a patient's health status by the patient and by the psychiatrist should be addressed. Professionals should be aware that patients' difficulties in private social relations might affect both treatment alliance and service utilisation.

The study described here compared levels of satisfaction with staff, environment, and other patients among 420 first-time and long-term patients in psychiatric outpatient and inpatient settings. The demographic, clinical, and outcome variables associated with satisfaction were explored. Patient satisfaction was related to quality of life, social functioning, treatment expectations, and one-year psychological and physical prognoses. Perceptions of other patients were significantly more positive among long-term patients than among first-time patients. The concerns of first-time patients about other patients are of special importance, and they should be addressed during initial treatment.

This article describes the development and psychometric assessment of the Evaluation of Client Services (ECS) measure of treatment satisfaction for people with chronic mental illnesses in community treatment settings. The ECS, a 20-item instrument, was validated in a sample of 184 individuals receiving outpatient mental health treatment in New York City. The four dimensions of the ECS, (1) treatment management and treatment outcome, (2) treatment relationship, (3) communication and information exchange, and (4) reachability of treatment facilities are internally consistent and stable over time. Analyses also show that the ECS is a valid indicator of satisfaction with mental health services which meaningfully correlates with quality of life and another measure of treatment satisfaction. The ECS is a brief and easy to understand treatment satisfaction tool with good psychometric properties.

QoL is independent of illness severity. Deinstitutionalisation improves QoL and OLS is mainly predicted by subjective variables.

Already the pilot version of the WPI has good psychometric properties. The final version of the WPI represents an optimized instrument to measure patient satisfaction that may help increase treatment quality in outpatient psychiatric care.