Determinants of parents' experiences with outpatient child and adolescent mental health services

A questionnaire was mailed to 17,871 parents or other primary caregivers whose children were attending 1 of the 86 outpatient CAMHS in Norway in 2006. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the associations between demographic, clinical and organizational characteristics, and three scales of parents' experiences.The questionnaire was completed by 7906 parents (46%). Organizational characteristics such as involvement of the parents in treatment and accessibility to the clinic explained most of the variation in all three scales of parents' experiences. Although the effects of demographic and clinical characteristics of the children in some instances were statistically significant, they only accounted for a small amount of the total explained variance.Accessibility to the clinic and involvement of the parents in treatment are much stronger predictors of parental experiences with outpatient CAMHS than are demographic and clinical variables. Accessibility and involvement are at least partly influenced by the clinics themselves, and hence parental satisfaction may be enhanced by making the clinics more accessible and by involving the parents/caregivers in the treatment.Patient satisfaction and experiences are increasingly used as indicators of quality in health care. Parents are often an integral part of the treatment within the child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), and their opinion may be crucial to the engagement and continuation of treatment [1]. Few studies have investigated the associations between background variables and parents' reported experiences with CAMHS [2,3]. It has been suggested that the demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients--in addition to organizational data--are needed when investigating parental satisfaction with CAMHS [4,5]. Most studies have identified one or more variables that are significantly associated with parental satisfaction with aspects of CAMHS, but we are not aware of any variables that are s