Day hospitals and centers for children and adolescents in Great Britain.

This history of day hospitals and centers for children and adolescents in Great Britain is reviewed following the inception of the first day hospital in 1961. Since then different types of day units have developed, influenced by the setting, age of child, and diagnosis. A range of therapeutic approaches has been used. While the practice of day treatment in either a day hospital or a center for infants, children, and/or adolescents had taken firm root in Great Britain, very few studies have been carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of this treatment approach. Those studies which have been done demonstrate the complex nature of the research and the difficulty in fully understanding the data it produces.