In times when economic considerations increasingly dominate medical care, the issue of quality assurance continues to gain more importance.

In the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic care for children and adolescents it is especially necessary to demonstrate the effectivity of treatments, as the impact of a psychiatric or therapeutic intervention not only unfolds through its application but also through the way in which the treatment is delivered. Therefore, the satisfaction of young patients and their caregivers must be determined as an important indicator of high quality psychiatric care, taking into account aspects of developmental psychology as well as systemic, ethical and legal questions.

In Switzerland, the National Association for Quality Development (ANQ) coordinates binding quality assessments in child and adolescent mental health service, including psychiatric institutions. The results of these assessments allow for a transparent comparison between hospitals and clinics nationwide. The Swiss Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has tasked a working group with the development of quality assurance questionnaires, with a view to the special requirements of child- and youth psychiatric clinics. These instruments are projected to be implemented as part of a Continuous Improvement Process (CIP) in all facilities, allowing them to steadily develop their quality assessment processes. This is the thematic area we are aiming to explore with this Symposium.

The first presentation will be dedicated to the development and assessment of psychometric properties of a questionnaire for the determination of patient and caregiver satisfaction in inpatient facilities. The second presentation will show the first clinical insights gained from our pilot study conducted in six inpatient facilities. The benchmark results will depict the benefits of these surveys to the internal quality management.
The third presentation will present a pilot study assessing satisfaction from multiple perspectives related to assertive community treatment. And finally, the fourth presentation will introduce the instrument of Treatment Adherence Measures (TAM) developed by multisystemic treatment (MST) Services as an excellent example for the efficient documentation of manual adherence and treatment quality.