Assessment of parents' concerns and evaluation of outcomes

Background Clinical and service evaluation often fails to accommodate suffi ciently to parental perspectives and priorities concerning health intervent ions. Although parent satisfaction questionnaires are widely used, these as sess issues chosen by the researcher. Quality of life research methods, how ever, can assess individual priorities. Methods A Schedule for Evaluation of Quality of Life was adapted to record the nature, and relative importance of parental concerns about their child before child psychiatric hospital admission. Level of concern or worry was assessed pre- and post-admission, and at 1 year follow-up, with a waiting-l ist control. Data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively for indivi duals and groups of cases. Results The adapted instrument was feasible and clinically useful. It did n ot show repeated measurement effects but was sensitive to the effects of in tervention (hospital admission). Effects (reduction in levels of concern) r emained evident at 1 year follow-up. Conclusion The instrument is brief, non-intrusive, and sensitive to change, It has utility for clinical case evaluation. It may complement satisfactio n questionnaires, and has advantages over rating scales for the evaluation of treatment outcomes.