An exploration of the ability of routine outcome measurement to represent clinically meaningful information regarding individual consumers

• Published in: Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 2012-10, Vol.20 (5), p.433-437
• Main Authors: McKay, Rod, Coombs, Tim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Decision making; Decision Support Techniques; Health of the Nation Outcome Scales; Humans; Information services; Mental Disorders - therapy; Mental health services; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) - methods; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) - utilization; Psychiatry - methods; Psychometrics - instrumentation; Treatment Outcome
• ISSN: 1039-8562; 1440-1665
• DOI: 10.1177/1039856212458813

Objective: Evidence that feedback on outcome measures can improve consumer outcomes is building but clinician engagement remains inconsistent. Clinicians can interpret and utilize familiar measures but have difficulty in relating to routine outcome measures like the Health of the Nation Outcomes Scales (HoNOS). This paper aims to explore and illustrate how these measures can represent clinically meaningful information regarding individual consumers. Method: Exploration of the aspects of individual clinical states and scenarios that can be represented using the HoNOS and Kessler-10 (K-10) will be used to illustrate their utility in clinical practice. Results: Routine outcome measures have the capacity to represent aspects of consumer symptoms, individual functioning and the need for support relevant to clinical care. These measures may be considered using pattern recognition and reflective practice to answer the following questions. Have we adequately assessed the consumer? Is there agreement between the consumer and clinician? Has anything changed? Conclusions: While it may be difficult to relate to the total scores on outcome measures, information from within such measures, individual items and subscales can be presented in a manner that is clinically meaningful. Where clinicians are familiar with the measures, this ability is already being used. The challenge is to make it ‘routine’.