Application Series 4

BETTER MENTAL HEALTH

SIR profiles the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in South Australia working towards improving the mental health of our children and adolescents.

Background

CAMHS consists of a Northern and Southern component, each providing a range of primary, secondary and tertiary facilities. At a local regional level, community based clinics have responsibility for the local population of children and adolescents. Outreach teams operate both within the metropolitan area and also travel to country areas. There is a community- based day-patient unit and hospital based units which provide both outpatient and inpatient facilities.

SIR a known option

In order for this complex structure to operate effectively' Jenny Clark, a Project Officer of the Northern Region, said 'it is essential to have an efficient database management system.' The Northern component of CAMHS has introduced such a system of data collection and database management using SIR.

The Research Evaluation Unit, where Jenny works, was already well established and using SIR on PCs for research purposes. 'So we became responsible for setting up the new database.' Jenny said.

A number of hardware items were purchased including a SUN Unix system, a bank of modems, and an optical-read scanner. The latter was purchased to overcome data-entry problems experienced with the old system.

FORMS is utilised

Regional clinics are connected to the system via modem lines, and, using MFORMS, clerical staff enter an ID number and administrative information, such as names, addresses and referral dates, directly into the database. This information is then available immediately to the service. In order to facilitate access to this information (there are currently over 9000 cases) a "quick search" facility was established. This consists of a separate record containing only the child's surname, first name and ID (which is automatically updated via FORMS). At the main menu screen clerical staff choose between "data entry" and "quick- search".

The remainder of the information for the database is collected on scanforms completed by parents and clinicians. These are scanned at the Research Evaluation Unit on a regular basis and the data loaded into the database. At their first visit to a clinic, parents provide demographic information including country of birth, occupation and local government district. Clinicians provide a small amount of information for every appointment. They also provide a classification of the child's problems, both at the first appointment and again when the case is closed. Information about other activities carried out by staff (group sessions, research, etc) is also collected on a weekly basis. When the case is closed, clinicians provide final closure details. A case may be reopened as a new episode and the process of data collection proceeds again (the child retains their ID number, and further information is collected for each new episode).

Added advantages

Jenny said 'SIR is particularly useful in helping us to fulfil our statutory reporting requirements. I have written a number of PQL programs to produce these quickly and simply'. Information is also provided to the clinics such as lists of cases, numbers of new referrals, cases closed, etc which is useful for day-to-day running. 'SIR has also provided access to a good deal of information vital in planning and administration of the service.' Jenny said 'It is now possible to follow individual children's attendance records (or non- attendance), and also to provide this kind of information for clinics and regions.'.

Socio-demographic profiles of clients in different clinics/regions can be produced. It is also possible to investigate more complicated issues. For example, it is possible to calculate the average number of visits and length of service for particular mental health problems. This information has enormous cost implications in service provision. As well as the administrative and technical uses that are made of the database, it provides valuable information for use in research projects.

'The staff at SIR provided help in establishing the database.' Jenny said. 'This help was invaluable in the process of setting up and structuring the database, improving its operation (e.g. the "quick search" facility), and writing the programs to extract the required information quickly and simply.'

For more information on CAMHS use of SIR please contact:

Jenny Clarke
Research Officer
Evaluation Unit
Adelaide Childrens Hospital
Adelaide SA

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