Writing letters to patients

Abstract

Recent changes in the law and mental health policy have forced psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to review the traditional cloak of secrecy that surrounds record keeping and letter writing. This paper establishes what proportion of patients attending a psychiatric out-patient clinic are interested in receiving letters from their psychiatrist. Those who are interested tend to be better educated, whereas those who are not interested are much more likely to have an ICD-10 diagnosis of schizophrenia. Overall, there appear to be high levels of satisfaction with the nature of the letters received. The significance of these findings is discussed in relation to the difficulty of engaging people with the most severe and enduring forms of mental health problems as active participants in the process of care.