A PSYCHIATRIST-RATED BATTERY OF MEASURES FOR ASSESSING THE CLINICAL STATUS OF PSYCHIATRIC-INPATIENTS

Despite trite increasing demand for outcome assessment measures, no pu blished reports have provided a standardized way to assess psychiatric inpatients that includes diagnosis and observer ratings of psychopath ology. This paper reviews general principles for selecting outcome ass essment measures, proposes a battery of instruments based on already a vailable measures to assess clinical status in psychiatric inpatients, reviews methods of implementing the battery in an academic inpatient psychiatric Setting, and presents preliminary data on its interrater r eliability, construct validity, and range of response to acute hospita lization. Preliminary results suggest that the battery may be useful f or resident and medical student education and for enhancing quality as surance and continuous quality improvement.