None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
It is important to develop new follow-up methods easy for young people to handle. Previous studies indicate that Interactive Voice Response (IVR) could be a new promising technique to follow up adolescents with psychiatric syndromes. IVR is an automated telephone system in which a central computer is programmed to administer incoming calls or to dial designated phone numbers. Subjects respond to questions by pressing a number on the telephone keypad. Sixty inpatients were recruited from a psychiatric emergency unit in Sweden. Patients were either called every second (N=30) or every fourth (N=30) day from the first day after discharge until their first visit in outpatient care. At each call, a pre-recorded voice asked them to evaluate their current mood using their mobile phones. The average response rate was 91%. A response rate of 100% was obtained by 71%. The probability of answering at least 75% of the calls was 88% in both groups. Sex, age and length of inpatient treatment did not affect the response rate, nor did randomisation. The boys estimated their current mood on average better than the girls did. Patients treated for less than three days estimated their current mood better than those treated for at least three days. Automated IVR is a feasible method of collecting follow-up data on current mood among adolescents discharged from a psychiatric emergency unit. The technology offers new promising ways of remote collection of self-reported data among adolescents.
Interventions
Sixty inpatients were recruited from a child and adolescent psychiatric emergency ward in Malmo, Sweden. Patients were either called every second (N = 30) or every fourth (N = 30) day from the first day after discharge until their first visit in outpatient care. At each call, a pre-recorded voice asked them to evaluate their current mood using the keys on their mobile phones. The patients were also asked to respond to whether they had been to an outpatient care consultation since the last time
Sixty inpatients were recruited from a child and adolescent psychiatric emergency ward in Malmo, Sweden. Patients were either called every second (N = 30) or every fourth (N = 30) day from the first day after discharge until their first visit in outpatient care. At each call, a pre-recorded voice asked them to evaluate their current mood using the keys on their mobile phones. The patients were also asked to respond to whether they had been to an outpatient care consultation since the last time they were contacted by the IVR system. Patients answering that they had not visited an outpatient care unit were called again according to schedule, while patients answering that they had been to an outpatient care consultation after discharge were not called again. At the end of each call, patients were informed to talk to someone trusted or to contact the emergency unit if experiencing accentuated symptoms. Each call, depending on answers given, lasted for 3-5 minutes. At the last call, which occurred 31 days after discharge, or after the first outpatient care visit, the participant was informed that no additional calls were to be made from the IVR system.
Sponsors
Lund University
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
13 Years to 17 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
*Consecutive adolescents, treated between December 2008 and November 2009 at the Department of Child & Adolescent psychiatry in Malmo, Sweden, who were discharged to outpatient treatment * Holder of a mobile phone * Having parents' acceptance of participation
Exclusion criteria
* Mental retardation * Non-Swedish speaking * Not dischargable to outpatient care * First visit in outpatient care on the day of discharge or the day after * Deviant registration * Treatment less than 24 hours
Outcome results
None listed