Treatment Satisfaction Compared with Outcome in Severe Dual Disorders

This paper examines patient (N = 75) ratings oftreatment satisfaction and outcome for severely mentallyill dually diagnosed outpatients participating inlong-term integrated dual focus treatment. In addition, it compares these ratings with case managerratings of patient outcome over a one year period.Satisfaction ratings ranged from very good to excellent.Combined means of several outcomes ratings indicated that most patients rated themselves asimproved. Satisfaction with over-all care and with casemanagement was significantly, though weakly (r = .3 and.31, respectively, p < .05), related to patient ratings of overall outcome. While most patientsrated that they had improved, satisfaction withtreatment was only weakly related to either patient orcase manager rated clinical outcomes. These findings indicate the relatively independentrelationship of satisfaction with treatment outcome andcaution against over generalizing the meaning oftreatment satisfaction measures.