Evaluation study at the University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Christian-Doppler-Clinic, Salzburg, Austria

Research areas: Psychological & psychiatric interventions, Health economics

Duration: January 2010 – June 2015

Project lead and co-operation: Roman Winkler (overall project) and Ingrid Zechmeister (economic evaluation) in co-operation with the University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Christian-Doppler-Clinic, Salzburg, Austria (Leonhard Thun-Hohenstein and Corinna T. Fritz) and Christoph Obermair (IT)
Duration: 01/2010 – 06/2015

Background:
In Austria, evaluation research in the context of child and adolescent psychiatry is still in the early stages. This co-operation project is perceived as a scientific contribution to the improvement of quality evaluations within the context of child and adolescent psychiatry.

Aims and research questions:
Since April 2011 the current evaluation study has been collecting data based on the outcome parameters identified in previous research (LBI-HTA project reports 27 and 28). This includes outcomes that relate to psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, psychological and socio-pedagogical treatments and services.
The following research questions guide the evaluation study:

• To what extent do children and adolescents at the Salzburg Clinic (inpatient and outpatient) experience “changes” in the course of time?
• What is the amount of resources before and during the stay in the clinic? How do resources relate to the service needs of the patients, the costs and the effects of the treatment?

Methods:
Primary data collection the University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Christian-Doppler-Clinic, Salzburg, Austria; quantitative instruments (e.g. concerning treatment effects, patients’ satisfaction with treatments and services, life quality etc.) and qualitative instruments (e.g. interviews with patients, parents) of empirical social research. The data evaluation is undertaken by means of SPSS.
The data collection will be examined across 4 points of measurement in order to detect „clinical changes“ in the course of time. Patients’ and their family members are asked at
T1: Start of the treatment
T2: Discharge
T3: 6 weeks after discharge
T4: 1.5 years after discharge
The economic evaluation will involve the collection of data such as duration and frequency of therapy units and will consider services that are provided by various health professionals at the clinic. Moreover, the project collects survey data about all services that patients use before and after the stay in the clinic.

Results:
Interim results are expected to be published in Winter 2013/2014.