Evaluating Treatment Environments describes how to assess the quality of psychiatric and substance abuse programs and how to use that information to monitor and improve these programs. Its aim is to identify environments that promote opportunities for personal growth, simultaneously enhancing both physical and psychological well-being. Although treatment programs are diverse, Moos asserts that a common conceptual framework can be used to evaluate them, and more emphasis should be placed on the process of matching personal and program factors and on the connections between such matches and patients' outcomes. The book is divided into three main parts. Part I focuses on hospital programs, using a sample of 160 programs throughout the United States. Part II evaluates community programs. Moos describes how to monitor and improve these programs, and assesses program implementation. Part III considers treatment environments, examining factors that shape the treatment environment, patients' satisfaction with and participation in program activities, patients' adaptation and community living skills, and patient-program congruence and the influence of treatment environments on patients with different levels of impairment. It also highlights the importance of the health care workplace and its impact on staff and the treatment environment. Treatment programs vary substantially in their policies and services, especially in what they expect of clients, rules about clients' daily life choices, and to what extent clients must be governed by the program, and whether or not the programs provide health and treatment services. Comparison studies are becoming more important as clients move more quickly from acute in-patient to community residential care. Moos stresses the need to pay special attention to how programs and services affect clients when conducting evaluations. Evaluating Treatment Environments will be a necessary addition to the libraries of mental health service professionals, as well as sociologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.

Evaluating Treatment Environments describes how to assess the quality of psychiatric and substance abuse programs and how to use that information to monitor and improve these programs. Its aim is to identify environments that promote opportunities for personal growth, simultaneously enhancing both physical and psychological well-being. Although treatment programs are diverse, Moos asserts that a common conceptual framework can be used to evaluate them, and more emphasis should be placed on the process of matching personal and program factors and on the connections between such matches and patients' outcomes. The book is divided into three main parts. Part I focuses on hospital programs, using a sample of 160 programs throughout the United States. Part II evaluates community programs. Moos describes how to monitor and improve these programs, and assesses program implementation. Part III considers treatment environments, examining factors that shape the treatment environment, patients' satisfaction with and participation in program activities, patients' adaptation and community living skills, and patient-program congruence and the influence of treatment environments on patients with different levels of impairment. It also highlights the importance of the health care workplace and its impact on staff and the treatment environment. Treatment programs vary substantially in their policies and services, especially in what they expect of clients, rules about clients' daily life choices, and to what extent clients must be governed by the program, and whether or not the programs provide health and treatment services. Comparison studies are becoming more important as clients move more quickly from acute in-patient to community residential care. Moos stresses the need to pay special attention to how programs and services affect clients when conducting evaluations. Evaluating Treatment Environments will be a necessary addition to the libraries of mental health service professionals, as well as sociologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.

This book presents the social ecological approach to the comparison and evaluation of treatment environments. Social ecology is concerned with the environment and how people adapt to it. The field deals with both the physical and the social environment. It combines basic research approaches with a dedication to resolving common human problems. The procedures developed in this classic volume have been used to monitor and improve treatment programs, to assess the adequacy of program implementation, and to understand the determinants and outcomes of specific aspects of treatment environments.

Evaluation and Action in the Social Environment provides a description of a framework for doing evaluation and action research in social settings. This book presents the strategies for analysis and intervention in community, health, and human service settings. Organized into 10 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the impact of social settings on individual behavior. This text then examines the family, community groups, and personal social networks. Other chapters consider the assessment and change in behavioral and physical environments. This book discusses as well the family as an interpersonal system, with emphasis on interactive sequences to show how symptomatic behavior has its own logic in the family context. The final chapter deals with larger and more complex settings and contexts, including schools, medical hospitals, and settings in the legal system. This book is a valuable resource for sociologists, anthropologists, social scientists, clinical therapists, program evaluators, and social policymakers.