Mental Health Outcome Measures provides an authoritative review of measurement scales currently available to assess the outcomes of mental health service intervention. The excerpt of summaries by leading writers in the field assess the contributions of scale in areas including mental state examination, quality of life, patient satisfaction, needs assessments, measurement of service cost, global functioning scales, and social disability. These chapters provide a critical appraisal of how far such scales have been shown to be reliable and valid, and provide valuable insights in to their ease of use. This book will provide an invaluable reference manual for those who want to take research on mental health services, and for those who need to interpret this research for policy, planning, and clinical practice.

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are measures of how patients feel or what they are able to do in the context of their health status; PROs are reports, usually on questionnaires, about a patient's health conditions, health behaviors, or experiences with health care that individuals report directly, without modification of responses by clinicians or others; thus, they directly reflect the voice of the patient. PROs cover domains such as physical health, mental and emotional health, functioning, symptoms and symptom burden, and health behaviors. They are relevant for many activities: helping patients and their clinicians make informed decisions about health care, monitoring the progress of care, setting policies for coverage and reimbursement of health services, improving the quality of health care services, and tracking or reporting on the performance of health care delivery organizations. We address the major methodological issues related to choosing, administering, and using PROs for these purposes, particularly in clinical practice settings. We include a framework for best practices in selecting PROs, focusing on choosing appropriate methods and modes for administering PRO measures to accommodate patients with diverse linguistic, cultural, educational, and functional skills, understanding measures developed through both classic and modern test theory, and addressing complex issues relating to scoring and analyzing PRO data.

Although Outcome Measurement has become an important tool in the evaluation of health promotion patient education and other health services interventions, problems remain in locating reliable measurements and scales. This book provides a unique compilation of more than 50 self-administered scales for measuring health behaviors, health status, self-efficacy, and health-care utilization.

As residential treatment centers and psychiatric hospitals are increasingly asked to document their effectiveness, it is essential for mental health care providers to demonstrate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the services they provide. Outcome Assessment in Residential Treatment helps health care providers demonstrate that their planned treatment is necessary and active rather than simply custodial. A practitioner’s guide to conducting treatment outcome assessment projects, this innovative book presents readers with historical perspectives, current issues, and practical suggestions for implementing an outcome assessment project.Outcome Assessment in Residential Treatment guides psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health practitioners, and social program administrators in addressing which therapeutic components contribute to the goals and objectives of their programs and which may require modification, radical revision, or even elimination. It helps residential treatment centers and psychiatric treatment facilities document treatment successes and better understand which factors (within the client, family, environment, treatment setting, or combinations therein) predict successful outcome. This objective data empowers readers to influence government and industry, enhance public awareness of the needs of severely disturbed children and youth, and validate the usefulness of intensive psychiatric treatment.Unlike other books on treatment outcome, Outcome Assessment in Residential Treatment tells readers how to determine clinically significant improvement and not simply statistically significant change. It gives practical, detailed, proven advice on how to carry out studies that will benefit residential treatment centers and the psychiatric and mental health fields. Contributors provide tools to validate/demonstrate that psychiatric and mental health treatments are effective. They offer insight into: planning a treatment outcome project recognizing ethical, practical, methodological, logistical, and clinical considerations in implementing a treatment outcome project selecting instruments to assess treatment outcome and measuring success comparing different outcome measuresHealth care providers must have accurate information about treatment outcomes to demonstrate that specific services are beneficial, cost-effective, and well-received by the client. Outcome Assessment in Residential Treatment helps readers evaluate the impact a treatment program has on a client’s clinical status and psychosocial and educational functioning, making it possible to provide an objective yardstick for the payer’s evaluation of the quality of care provided.Psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health practitioners, and social program administrators will find Outcome Assessment in Residential Treatment an essential guide to evaluating and understanding the relative effects of specific interventions or procedures on the quality and effectiveness of their services. They will use this information to make appropriate changes which guarantee that they best meet their clients’mental health care needs.

This User’s Guide is a resource for investigators and stakeholders who develop and review observational comparative effectiveness research protocols. It explains how to (1) identify key considerations and best practices for research design; (2) build a protocol based on these standards and best practices; and (3) judge the adequacy and completeness of a protocol. Eleven chapters cover all aspects of research design, including: developing study objectives, defining and refining study questions, addressing the heterogeneity of treatment effect, characterizing exposure, selecting a comparator, defining and measuring outcomes, and identifying optimal data sources. Checklists of guidance and key considerations for protocols are provided at the end of each chapter. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews. More more information, please consult the Agency website: www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov)

Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.