Cost of transportation to a psychogeriatric day hospital: minibus versus taxi service
✍ Scribed by Ajit Shah
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 327 KB
- Volume
- 11
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6230
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✦ Synopsis
The costs of transporting psychogeriatric day patients using the hospital-owned minibus and privately tendered taxi service are compared. Both services were estimated to have similar costs. The results are discussed in the context of methodological difficulties and the advantage of the minibus and the taxi services. KEY woaDs+osts; psychogeriatrics; day hospitals; transport Psychogeriatric day hospitals provide opportunity for assessment, treatment, rehabilitation (Cirirelli and Browne, 1986), long-term support (Arie, 1979), socialization and peer interaction (Cirirelli and Browne, 1986), development of social networks (Shah, 1991) and support for carers (Elizabeth and Spall, 1991). Recently, the role of such day hospitals has been further debated (Murphy, 1994;Fasey, 1994;Howard, 1994).
With the predicted demographic changes, there will be a proportionate increase in those aged 85 and over, and this is likely to result in increased psychiatric morbidity (Shah, 1992a,b;Shah and Ames, 1994). In the United Kingdom, the new general practice contract may result in increased detection of such morbidity (Shah, 1992a). Ultimately, this may increase the burden on psychogeriatric services and the demand for day hospitals may grow.
Elderly patients often require transportation to attend hospitals. For example, 80% of patients booked to attend psychogeriatric outpatient clinics require the ambulance service (Benbow, 1990). Reasons for this include physical frailty, reduced mobility, sensory impairment (especially visual), psychiatric morbidity including cognitive impairment, lack of own transport and lack of available carers. A large epidemiological study of confused