Cross-national reliability of clinician-rated outcome measures in child and adolescent mental health services.
Clinician-rated measures are in extensive use as routine outcome measures in child and adolescent mental health services. We investigated cross-national differences and inter-rater reliability of the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents (HoNOSCA), the Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) and the Global Assessment of Psychosocial Disability (GAPD). Thirty clinicians from 5 nations independently rated 20 written vignettes. The national groups afterwards established national consensus ratings. There were no cross-national differences in independent scores, but there were differences in national consensus scores, which were also more severe than independent scores. The ICC for the HoNOSCA total score was 0.84, for the CGAS 0.61 and for the GAPD 0.54. These measures may usefully contribute to cross-national comparison studies.
Hanssen-Bauer
Ketil
K
Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Eastern and Southern Norway, P.O. Box 4623, Nydalen, Oslo, NO-0405, Norway. ketil.hanssen-bauer@r-bup.no
Gowers
Simon
S
Aalen
Odd O
OO
Bilenberg
Niels
N
Brann
Peter
P
Garralda
Elena
E
Merry
Sally
S
Heyerdahl
Sonja
S
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009664:Norway; D015588:Observer Variation; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*