Routine outcome measurement completion rates of the CORE‐OM in primary care psychological therapies and counselling

Abstract

Formally evaluating and reporting on the progress of clients is now seen as a central component of clinical practice. Generally, research suggests that the percentage of practitioners who use outcome measures as part of their clinical practice is relatively low. However, no national benchmarks have yet been presented which allow both practitioners and services to assess their relative performance in terms of data collection. The present study uses the CORE National Research database (n0/31882) and reports pre-and post-therapy assessment completion rates, thereby enabling services to track their performance relative to other services. On average, pre-therapy CORE-OMs were reliably completed by 83% of clients while post-therapy forms were completed by 39%. However, there were large variations between services. The practical use and implications of the results presented are discussed by managers of NHS primary care counselling services.

Evaluating a person-centred chronic pain service using indices of reliable and clinically significant change

“…In this sample, 67.5 % of patients completed at least one post-therapy measure. This compares favourably with a mean of 39% in a recent investigation into completion rates [28]. Use of routine measures may be inappropriate for some patients, for example, due to language barriers, lack of appropriate norms, or patients appearing distressed or fatigued by them.…”

“…There are several limitations to our study, including missing data and the measures used that mean results should be interpreted with caution. Patients who drop out of therapy, or who have unplanned endings, may have poorer outcomes [28] and nearly a fifth of the sample had no explanation for missing outcome data. These factors may have contributed to an inflated picture of service effectiveness.…”

Versão Portuguesa do CORE-OM: tradução, adaptação e estudo preliminar das suas propriedades psicométricas

“…Por ser um instrumento flexível, o CORE-OM e as suas versões têm sido usados em vários contextos e populações, tais como avaliação da mudança psicológica em unidades primárias e secundárias de saúde [20][21][22] , supervisão clínica 23 , serviços de aconselhamento universitário 24 e ainda investigação em várias áreas, tais como psicoterapia 26 e saúde mental em geral [26][27][28] .…”

Practice‐based Evidence as a Complement to Evidence‐based Practice: From Dichotomy to Chiasmus

“…Benchmarking at the level of services requires services to compare their effectiveness with other similar services. Benchmarks for primary care counselling services in the NHS have been established for a range of parameters including completion rates for outcome measures (Bewick et al, 2006), client-initiated termination of therapy (Connell, Grant & Mullin, 2006), and rates for improvement and recovery . Similarity involves comparison of the service structure and function, but services also need to be able to consider their case mix.…”