ASSESSING CLINICAL OUTCOMES - THE COMMUNITY FUNCTIONING OF PERSONS WITH SERIOUS MENTAL-ILLNESS

Objective: The demand to measure the clinical outcomes of persons with serious mental illness in the community is growing; however, there is no consensus about how to do this task. This paper identifies challen ges in measuring the outcomes of persons with serious mental illness a nd reviews selected instruments that measure the community functioning of this population. Methods: Papers in peer-reviewed psychiatric jour nals for the years 1986 to 1996 were reviewed to select instruments th at measure two or more domains of community functioning and for which data on reliability and validity have been published. Selected instrum ents were evaluated, focusing on their format, content, item scoring, length, and original sample population. Results and Conclusions: Chall enges to measuring the community functioning of persons with serious m ental illness include the multiplicity of domains that must be measure d, the conflicting interests of various stakeholders involved in care, the limitations of self-report data, and other methodological problem s. Nine instruments that met the study criteria were selected from the literature. Three are self-report instruments, and six are based on t he report of an informant or independent rater. The instruments vary i n length and in their original sample population. The content areas mo st consistently represented are self-care and social relationships. Li fe satisfaction, health status, psychiatric symptoms, and work skills are not consistently addressed. Individual instruments have additional limitations, including the absence of behavioral anchors for scale it ems and the lack of specificity to persons with serious mental illness . Effort should be directed toward sharing data across settings, measu ring the effects of treatment interventions, and demonstrating the pre dictive validity of outcome data.