SHORT COMMUNICATION Service satisfaction on discharge from a psychiatric mother and baby unit: a representative patient survey Arokia Antonysamy & Angelika Wieck & Anja Wittkowski Received: 29 October 2008 / Accepted: 12 June 2009 / Published online: 3 July 2009 # Springer-Verlag 2009 Abstract In this representative survey of 57 women before discharge from a psychiatric mother and baby unit satisfaction levels were high for most aspects of the service. However, the qualitative part of the study highlighted issues that were not captured by completion of the satisfaction questionnaire. These included a need for greater support from nursing staff and a high level of distress about interactions with childrens social workers in some patients. The latter aspect requires further exploration. For future surveys we recommend to use quantitative as well as qualitative methodology. Keywords Satisfaction . Inpatients . Psychiatric mother and baby unit Introduction When recently delivered mothers require psychiatric treat- ment in hospital, an admission jointly with their babies appears intuitatively appropriate. Dedicated mother and baby units are available in several countries but little is as yet known about their efficacy and how patients evaluate them (Joy and Saylan 2007). There has only been one survey of inpatients treated on a specialized mother and baby unit which ascertained their views by postal question- naire after discharge (Neil et al. 2006). In this study we found that patients were satisfied with most aspects of the service but that they were less satisfied with the degree of their involvement in the planning and decision making about their care and the availability of structured activities. One third was dissatisfied with discussions of their problems with doctors or nurses. However, the results may not have been representative since only 49% of women returned the questionnaires and responders may have had a different experience of the service from non- responders. In this second survey we ascertained patients’ views before discharge in order to enhance the rate of participa- tion. We also aimed to explore reasons for dissatisfaction in areas that were highlighted in the previous survey and to identify characteristics of patients that influenced their experience. The choice of patient variables was based on key factors that have been reported to determine satisfaction levels in psychiatric inpatients, such as age (Greenwood et al. 1999), diagnosis (Kelstrup et al. 1993; Svensson and Hansson 1994) and detention status (Greenwood et al. 1999; Svensson and Hansson 1994). Ethnic background was also included because it has been reported to have an effect on the experience of mental health services in the community (Raleigh et al. 2007). The study was approved by the Department for Research and Development of the Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust. A. Antonysamy : A. Wieck (*) : A. Wittkowski Department of Psychiatry, Laureate House, Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, Wythenshawe Hospital, Southmoor Road, Manchester M23 9LT, UK e-mail: awieck@globalnet.co.uk A. Wieck School of Psychiatry, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK A. Wittkowski School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Arch Womens Ment Health (2009) 12:359–362 DOI 10.1007/s00737-009-0085-2