Development and evaluation of outcome measures

The Mental Health Outcomes and Case Complexity Research Stream undertakes projects involving the development of outcome measures, key performance indicators, benchmarking frameworks and casemix classifications for mental health settings.

Two recent studies include:

Development of a new measure, the Health of the Nation Outcomes Scales for Infants (HoNOSI)
The HoNOSI is intended as a routine outcome measure to support clinicians working with mental health of children aged 0-47 months. It fills a gap in outcome measurement for infants and pre-schoolers. A study of the measure’s face validity, and field trials of its concurrent validity and inter-rater reliability, show the measure has acceptable properties and should be supported for release.
Evaluation of the content validity of the revised HoNOS glossaries for working age adults and older adults
The HoNOS family of measures are among the most widely used outcome measurement tools in mental health services. In 2018, updated glossaries for the HoNOS versions for working-age adults and older people were published. The revised measures are known as the HoNOS 2018 and HoNOS Older Adults (HoNOS OA), respectively. We conducted concurrent surveys of the content validity of the HoNOS 2018 and HoNOS OA scales with experts from Australia, England, and New Zealand. The experts examined the revised scales and provided their opinions regarding their relevance, comprehensibility and comprehensiveness. Results showed consensus on the importance of the revised scales for summarising the severity of problems experienced by adults and older adults in contact with specialised mental health services.