[Duration of treatment in private psychiatric practices]

The purpose of the study was to investigate duration of treatment and dropout from treatment in private psychiatric practices.

Data from the data base: Quality Assurance in Danish Psychiatric Private Practice (QAD3P) is applied for the investigation. The database was established in 1996 and includes information about approximately 40,000 treatment episodes. The present investigation uses information about 6,067 treatment episodes from 10 private practising psychiatrists, all of whom participated continuously in the Quality Assurance data base in the period 1998-2002 inclusive.

Depression, anxiety and personal disorders constitute 82% of the treated episodes. Schizophrenia spectrum disorders show the longest duration of treatment (33.4% are treated for longer than 12 months), and persons with personality disorders have the shortest treatment duration (66.9% terminate the treatment within 6 months). Dropout from treatment is predicted (logistic regression) by gender (male), OR 1.31, 95% CI, 1.15-1.48 and age (< or = 44 years) (OR 2.49, 95% CI 2.21-2.81).

Approximately 25% of the patients drop out of treatment. The causes for this are not known, but are correlated to patients' young age (< or = 44 years) and gender (male).