Italian validation of the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation 10 (CORE-10): a short measure for routine outcome monitoring in clinical practice

Abstract

The customization of the intervention using patient feedback is an evidence-based practice aimed at the continuous evaluation, during the course of treatment, of the patient's change at a clinical level. There are few easy-to-use tools for common assessment of psychological distress, designed to be used for screening and during treatment to monitor progress. The CORE-10 is definitely one of them. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation - 10 (CORE-10). A sample of 548 participants (females, N = 463, 84,5%; mean age 23.29 ± 7.21 years) was recruited in the study and filled out a battery of measures. The internal validity of the CORE-10 was investigated through a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) which evidenced a good fit to the data, suggesting a unidimensional factorial structure of the measure. Further, the scale had a good internal reliability and was significantly associated with other measures of distress, interpersonal problems, wellbeing, and insecure attachment. Finally, it showed excellent diagnostic accuracy, as well as intrinsic and post-test diagnostics. Given its validity and reliability, the CORE-10 may be adopted by Italian-speaking psychotherapists and researchers to evaluate the outcomes of mental health interventions as well as to track the session-to-session changes over time in psychological distress among patients.