Development and Initial Validation of a Brief Mental Health Outcome Measure

Development and Initial Validation of a Brief Mental Health Outcome Measure

Using a combination of classical test theory and Rasch item analysis, we developed a short scale designed to measure the effectiveness of mental health treatment across a wide range of mental health services and populations. Item development for the scale was guided by literature review and intervie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality assessment Vol. 73; no. 3; pp. 359 - 373
Main Authors: Blais, Mark A., Lenderking, William R., Baer, Lee, deLorell, Ashley, Peets, Kathleen, Leahy, Linda, Burns, Craig
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Philadelphia, PA Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc 01-12-1999
Taylor & Francis
Subjects:
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Development
Female
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Mental Disorders - therapy
Mental Health
Middle Aged
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychotherapy - standards
Scales
Sensitivity and Specificity
Techniques and methods
Treatment
Treatment Outcome
Validity
Human
Test validation
Evaluation scale
Treatment efficiency
Mental disorder
Psychometrics
Test reliability
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Summary:Using a combination of classical test theory and Rasch item analysis, we developed a short scale designed to measure the effectiveness of mental health treatment across a wide range of mental health services and populations. Item development for the scale was guided by literature review and interviews with senior clinicians and with patients. Using 3 different samples consisting of inpatients, outpatients, and nonpatients, we reduced our initial item pool from 81 to 10 items. The 10-item scale had an alpha of .96 and showed strong correlations with commonly used measures of psychological well-being and distress. Our results suggest that the scale appears to measure a broad domain of psychological health. The scale appeared to lack ceiling and floor effects, and it discriminated between inpatients, outpatients, and nonpatients, suggesting the scale has excellent potential to be broadly responsive to a variety of treatment effects. In addition, the new scale proved to be sensitive to treatment changes in a sample of 20 psychiatric inpatients. Overall, the initial data suggest that we have developed a brief, sensitive outcome measure designed to have wide application across psychiatric and psychological treatments and populations.
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ISSN:0022-3891
1532-7752
DOI:10.1207/S15327752JPA7303_5