The impact of mental health service integration on systemic function: a staff perspective.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of community staff regarding service process and quality, while a public mental health service integrated acute inpatient and continuing care components.

Methods: The study employed a naturalistic successive measures design in which community mental health staff completed a questionnaire on three occasions during the integration process.

Results: Staff perceived overall service quality to improve during the integration process with continuity of care being the area subject to greatest improvement.

Conclusions: The integration of acute inpatient and continuing care services resulted in changes to service process and outcome, which were judged by staff to be beneficial, especially with respect to continuity of patient care.