Outcome assessment in psychiatric service evaluation

Background: The present paper gives an overview of outcome assessment issues in psychiatric service evaluation, based on seven proposals concerning the content and methodology of outcome assessment. It is stressed that outcome assessments should be performed on both the system and the patient level and that multiple outcome domains should be used, reflecting multiple perspectives of the services. It is also argued that outcome studies benefit from incorporating service use measures in order to enable analyses of costs and cost-effectiveness of services. Outcome studies of community-based psychiatric services have so far mainly investigated service models or programs. Conclusions: It is concluded that there is a need to investigate the relationship between particular parts and content of services and outcome, in order to increase knowledge of what is effective in community-based psychiatric services.