Patient Characteristics and Outcome Measurement in a Forensically Informed Predischarge Unit

Purpose

This study sought to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients admitted to forensically informed pre-discharge unit in England.

Design

Using a prospective service evaluation framework and a clinical case register (n=30) patients were assessed for any change over admission.

Findings

The results showed a statistically significant reduction in the security items and total scores on the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale (HoNOS), and the Clinical and Risk management items and total scores on the Historical Clinical Risk factor-20 (HCR-20), alongside a significance improvement in the Model of Human Occupation Screening Tool (MOHOST) total scores. Furthermore, when contrasted with each other the sample of community discharges showed similar significant improvements to the above whereas the recalled patients showed mostly declining scores evidencing the HCR-20, HoNOS and MOHOSTs ability as predictors of discharge.

Originality / value

These findings are relevant to both users and providers of forensic mental health services as this unit is unique in the sense of it not existing in other services.