Routine outcome measurement in mental health service consumers: who should provide support for the self-assessments?
This study examined whether mental health community service users completed outcome self-reports differently when assessments were supervised by internal vs. external staff. The examination of potential differences between the two has useful implications for mental health systems that take upon themselves the challenge of Routine Outcome Measurement (ROM), as it might impact allocation of public resources and managed care program planning. 73 consumers completed the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life (MANSA), a shortened version of the Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS), and a functioning questionnaire. Questionnaires were administered, once using support provided by internal staff and once using support provided by external professional staff, with a one-month time interval and in random order. A MANOVA Repeated Measures showed no differences in outcomes of quality of life and recovery between internal and external support. Functioning scores were higher for the internal support when the internal assessments were performed first. Overall, except for the differences in functioning assessment, outcome scores were not determined by the supporting agency. This might indicate that when measuring quality of life and recovery, different supporting methods can be used to gather outcome measures and internal staff might be a good default agency to do this. Differences found in functioning assessment are discussed.
Department of Community Mental Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.
Marc
M
Gelkopf
Department of Community Mental Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel; Department of Social Work, Zefat Academic College, Zefat, Israel; Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Electronic address: shirap@zefat.ac.il.
Shira
S
Pagorek-Eshel
St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Tom
T
Trauer
Department of Community Mental Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.
David
D
Roe
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D040841:Resource Allocation; D012647:Self-Assessment; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult
Assessment biases; Internal vs. external assessment; Mental health assessments; Mental health services; Outcome measurement