NCJ Number
135583
Date Published
1989
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This chapter reviews the literature on patient access to medical records and then reports on a study of patient and staff attitudes toward patient access to medical records in a forensic center.
Abstract
Most of the studies reviewed in the literature were nonblind, noncontrolled reports of the effects of granting patients access to their records. Patients typically were positive toward such access and had favorable attitudes after reading their charts. Staff were generally positive toward patient access to records, particularly after they saw positive patient responses to the access. The site for the authors' study was the Community Preparation Services Unit (CPS), a 20-bed minimum security unit of the Forensic Center at Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison, Wis. The CPS was chosen as the pilot site for increased patient access to their records, because the patients could be expected to be the most capable of understanding the information in the records and the least likely to become upset by what they might read in their records. A control group, which did not have increased access to their records during the initial pilot phase, were chosen as controls for the 4-month study period. Even though fewer than half the patients read any of their charts during the formal study period, the interviews indicated that the great majority of both study and control patients regarded access to charts as positive. Staff were initially negative toward the increased records access but tended to be more positive as their predictions of negative effects did not materialize. 55 references