The impact of access to transportation on appointment keeping behavior in a community mental health agency.

摘要

This study, which examined the impact of access to transportation on appointment-keeping behavior, was conducted at Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center, which is located in Culver City, California.;Other factors hypothesized to have an impact on appointment-keeping behavior were also explored. These included demographics and client characteristics (e.g., diagnosis and level of functioning); attitudes toward treatment; type of treatment received and travel variables, such as distance, travel time and mode of transportation.;Participants in this study were 65 clients randomly selected from Didi Hirsch's clinical population. Each participant was asked to complete a one-page questionnaire which measured Level of Access to Transportation (LAT), demographic data, level of satisfaction with treatment, importance of getting to clinic, mode of travel, and subjects' perceptions about frequency with which they are late or absent due to transportation problems.;Appointment-Keeping Behavior (arrival/departure time, etc.) was measured by therapists over a three week period.;It was hypothesized that (a) there would be a positive correlation between income and AKB, such that individuals in higher income brackets would be more likely to keep their appointments; (b) after taking into account the effects of income, level of functioning (GAF score) would explain a significant portion of the variance in Appointment-Keeping Behavior; (c) after taking into account the contributions of income, it was expected that level of importance of treatment would explain a significant portion of the variance in Appointment-Keeping Behavior; (d) after taking into account the contributions of demographic variables and treatment-related variables, it was expected that level of access to transportation (LAT) would account for a significant portion of the variance in Appointment-Keeping Behavior and (e) taking into account the contributions of income, it was expected that level of access to transportation would account for a significant portion of the variance in Appointment-Keeping Behavior.;Results from multiple regression analyses confirmed the primary hypothesis regarding the effects of access to transportation on Appointment-Keeping Behavior. Level of access to transportation was the only significant predictor of Appointment-Keeping Behavior found in this analysis.;These results suggest that access to transportation should be considered in future research on appointment-keeping behavior in mental health settings. In addition, these results suggest that if service delivery systems are to provide effective community mental health services, then perhaps attention should be given to transportation-related concerns as part of the overall planning effort.