Evaluating Treatment Outcome

Introduction Once treatment has been initiated with a child victim, the periodic assessment of the client’s psychological and social functioning — including a final assessment at the end of treatment — becomes an important aspect of ongoing clinical care. Whenever possible, such an assessment process should be formal (that is, psychometric) in nature, although less formal inquiries (for example, open-ended questions during treatment) can also be relevant. This chapter discusses the rationale for periodic and end-point evaluations, the technical issues intrinsic to outcome assessment, and what constitutes a minimally positive treatment outcome. It also cautions, however, that the limitations of psychometric instruments and client/rater defensiveness on assessment instruments may undermine the meaningful psychometric evaluation of outcome in some cases.