The European standardization of instruments for the assessment of outcomesand the costs of services for people with severe mental illness

For the evaluation of the effectiveness of psychiatric service systems inte rnationally standardised instruments for the assessment of the outcome and the costs of psychiatric and psychosocial treatment and care are increasing ly needed. Beside the measurement of objective facts there is a growing imp ortance of the consideration of the subjective perspective of patients and relatives. In the research project "Cost-effectiveness analysis of psychiat ric service systems in the European comparison" of the Research association for Public Health in Saxony, developments were worked out, in close cooper ation with the BIOMED-2 project "European Psychiatric Services: Inputs Link ed to Outcome Domains and Needs", German versions of five European standard ized instruments for the assessment of needs for care, treatment satisfacti on, burden of care on relatives, quality of life and service costs. The psy chometric properties of the instruments were tested within the framework of a longitudinal study with 307 patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia . As a result of this study, German versions of all relevant European instr uments for psychiatric service evaluation are now available.