Editorial comment: needs assessment in old age psychiatry - a need for standardization
W.A. Hamid
Bok Engelsk
| Utgitt | WA Hamid Univ London Inst Psychiat Old Age P
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| Opplysninger | Need assessment is an important component in planning, prioritizing and evaluating care provision. Old age psychiatry is an expanding community-based speciality. It is important for community mental health services to be need-led (McCrone and Strathdee, 1994), since this ensures better targeting of the limited resources. The available needs assessment instruments are either those problem- oriented methods that have limited applicability in health service planning or methods that are too complicated and cumbersome to be used in the community. Some of these instruments have been standardized on adult general psychiatry patients and might not be appropriate for old age psychiatry services. There is thus an opportunity for the development of a needs assessment method that is standardized on old age psychiatry patients and measures need for the range of interventions offered by old age psychiatry services.
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