FURTHER RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY STUDIES OF A PROCEDURE TO ASSESS THENEEDS FOR CARE OF THE CHRONICALLY MENTALLY-ILL

The Needs for Care Assessment Schedule (NFCAS; Brewin et al. 1987) is an itemized and systematic procedure that aims to evaluate the needs f or care of long-term mentally ill patients. The present study pursues reliability and validity related issues with the NFCAS in a different cultural context applying the procedure to 98 severely mentally ill pa tients belonging to different patient groups: short-term, long-term, i n-patient and out-patient. Inter-rater reliability was found to be exc ellent. The results suggest that a clinician with little practical exp erience and adequate training may effectively use the procedure. The a ssessment of clinical relevance suggested that the procedure is both a pplicable and pertinent to all the patients in the study. Additional g uidelines were developed for its use with long-term in-patients.