Assessing outcomes in child psychiatry.
OBJECTIVE
To report on the first year of a program using standardized rating scales within a large, multisite mental health system of care for children and to assess the validity, reliability, and feasibility of these scales.


METHODS
Naturalistic follow-up of clinicians' ratings.


METHODS
Clinicians filled out the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale for Children (BPRS-C) and the Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) at intake and discharge/90-day follow-up for all new patients.


RESULTS
Data were collected on 2396 patients from all 20 sites serving children in the Partners HealthCare network. Mean scores for both BPRS-C and CGAS showed worst functioning at inpatient sites, followed by Acute Residential Treatment, then partial hospital, then outpatient sites. All patients re-rated at discharge or 90-day follow-up showed a significant improvement in scores. Inter-item reliability on the BPRS-C was acceptable, with Cronbach alphas of .78 and .81. Feasibility at intake was demonstrated in that 66% of all patients had a completed form at intake. Reassessment at discharge also appeared to be feasible in more restrictive levels of care, but less feasible in outpatient sites, where fewer than 25% of all patients had a follow-up form.


CONCLUSIONS
This evaluation suggested that the 2 standardized measures appeared to be valid and reliable as part of routine intake and discharge/follow-up in a large child psychiatry system of care. Whether these measures are truly clinically useful remains to be demonstrated because there is at present no gold standard for assessing the quality of treatment or change caused by it.
McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA.
Joseph
J
Gold
Ralph J
RJ
Buonopane
Robert A
RA
Caggiano
Mark
M
Picciotto
Christine
C
Vogeli
Natalie T
NT
Kanner
Rebecca L
RL
Babcock
Zhonghe
Z
Li
Michael
M
Jellinek
Stacey J
SJ
Drubner
Kenneth J
KJ
Sklar
J Michael
JM
Murphy
D000293:Adolescent; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States