[Community psychiatry in Copenhagen. Services and resource utilization]

The purpose was to estimate the number and nature of contacts in a newly-established community psychiatry centre and their distribution according to diagnostic category, registered on computer. The number of contacts and day-patient days were about 6000 each per year. Two professionals participated in 20% of the contacts and 20% were in the patient's home (psychotic patients). Fifty percent of the contacts had a psychotherapeutic content, 10% were about medicine and 30% had a mixed content. The chronic patients made 20-25 contacts/year and other patients 6-10 per treatment episode. Forty-five percent of the resources were used on out-patients/hometreatment, 30% on activities, 10% on intake, 10% on secretarial work and 5% on administration. Seventy percent of resources were used on chronic patients and 20% on patients with minor disorders. Fifty-five percent of time spent was used for direct patient contact (40% for psychiatrists). Time for contacts was 45-60 minutes/patient/2 weeks (6 minutes for psychiatrists). In accordance with the politically defined goal the main part of the resources were used for psychotic patients. The patients valued the contacts as seen by a low rate of non attendance. The amount of time for contact seems reasonable although it was low for psychiatrists.