Developing and Applying a Systematic Process for Evaluation of Clinical Outcome Assessment Instruments

In recent years, there has been increasing demand within the mental health field for practitioners and administrators to evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of psychological services delivered to the populations they serve. In response to these demands, there has been a proliferation of outcome assessment instruments. The purpose of this article is to describe the development and application of a systematic process for evaluating and selecting clinical outcome measures for use by mental health organizations. A group of Veterans Affairs Medical Center psychologists systematically applied criteria to a set of brief, commonly used, self-report outcome instruments. Results of this evaluation process are discussed, and the implications for selecting outcome measures for other mental health settings and outcome measurement in general are addressed.