The quality in psychiatric care-Addiction outpatient instrument: Psychometric properties and patient views of the quality of care.

The Discharge, Environment and Next of kin subscales did not reach acceptable internal consistency, so scores from those dimensions should be interpreted cautiously. The addiction-specific items were evaluated for the first time in a sample of 244, which the authors describe as at the lower end of the recommended sample size. The response rate was 52%, and 73 returned questionnaires were excluded for missing data, so the analysed sample was smaller than the number of patients at the clinics. Clinics had incomplete missing-patient registrations, so the authors could not analyse dropouts. Only patients able to understand and express themselves in Swedish were invited, so the findings may not apply to patients needing language support. The cross-sectional design cannot show cause and effect.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest and received no specific funding.

Do not read the 92% positive rating as proof that discharge care is adequate. Discharge was the lowest-rated dimension, and the Discharge subscale was too weak to use alone.