Hospital brochures in mental healthcare. how patient-centered are they?

Context: From the results of the 2020 Flemish survey looking into psychiatric patients' views of the in-patient care they have received, it appeared that hospital communication is experienced as not sufficiently patient-centered. In communication research, the quality of written patient materials in physical healthcare has been scrutinized and suggestions for the enhancement of their patient-centeredness, comprehensibility, and actionability have been made. Yet, a similar research interest in the quality of health communication in mental healthcare has failed to materialize.

Objective and design: Against a definition of patient-centeredness in mental healthcare, this study investigated the quality of 30 psychiatric hospital brochures from a triangulated linguistic and content perspective, using readability formulas as well as the CCI and PEMAT-P instruments.

Results: It appeared that none of the brochures are sufficiently patient-centered, as they fail to take appropriate and full account of mental health patients' specific concerns and difficulties.

Discussion: The lack of quality brochures hampers patients' understanding of their mental health condition and participation in their recovery process, especially when they have a low (mental) health literacy.

Conclusion: Together, hospitals and patient organizations, should remedy this situation and thus fortify the public's trust in the evidence-based and high-quality patient-centered care psychiatric hospitals offer.