Routine outcome measurement completion rates of the CORE-OM in primary care psychological therapies and counselling

Abstract

Formally evaluating and reporting on the progress of clients is now seen as a central component of clinical practice. Generally, research suggests that the percentage of practitioners who use outcome measures as part of their clinical practice is relatively low. However, no national benchmarks have yet been presented which allow both practitioners and services to assess their relative performance in terms of data collection. The present study uses the CORE National Research database (n=31882) and reports pre- and post-therapy assessment completion rates, thereby enabling services to track their performance relative to other services. On average, pre-therapy CORE-OMs were reliably completed by 83% of clients while post-therapy forms were completed by 39%. However, there were large variations between services. The practical use and implications of the results presented are discussed by managers of NHS primary care counselling services.

Keywords:

• Outcome measure completion
• primary care
• counselling
• service quality management

This work was supported by funding from the Artemis Trust and also from the R&D Priorities & Needs Levy via Leeds Mental Health Teaching NHS Trust. We would like to thank Barry McInnes, Richard Evans and Judith Slaa for their input. We greatly appreciate the feedback given at the Psychological Therapies Research Network (North) 2005 meeting. We also thank Alex Curtis-Jenkins at CORE IMS for his technical input into the data collection process.

Notes

¹Further details are available from the lead author on request.