Social Services and Health Services Day Care in Mental Health: The Social Networks and Care Needs of their Users

Jocelyn Catty, Kim Goddard and Tom Burns
Additional contact information
Jocelyn Catty: Department of Mental Health, Jenner Wing, St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, UK, jcatty@sghms.ac.uk
Kim Goddard: South West London and St. George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, Springfield University Hospital, London, UK, kgoddard@swlstg-tr.nhs.uk
Tom Burns: Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, tom.burns@psychiatry.oxford.ac.uk

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2005, vol. 51, issue 1, 23-34

Abstract: Background: In view of the increasing integration of health and social care, there is an urgent need to know how health service day hospitals and social service day centres are being used, and by whom. Aims: We aimed to compare users of day hospitals and centres in terms of their social networks, needs for care and demographics. Methods: A cross-sectional, comparative study of service users at two day hospitals and four day centres compared their social networks, needs and characteristics. Results: Day centre clients had much larger social networks, including a threefold difference in total contacts and two-fold difference in confidants, but had more needs for care, particularly relating to psychological distress. They were also older on average than day hospital patients and were a more long-term group. Conclusion: It is vital to understand differences between health service day hospitals and social service day centres given the increasing integration of health and social care. The present study shows that the two user groups are significantly different. It is unlikely that the needs of most day care users could be met by either service interchangeably.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764005053267 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:51:y:2005:i:1:p:23-34

DOI: 10.1177/0020764005053267

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().