Outcome Rating Scale and Session Rating Scale in psychological practice: Clinical utility of ultra-brief measures

The validity and reliability of the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS) and the Session Rating Scale (SRS) were evaluated against existing longer measures, including the Outcome Questionnaire-45, Working Alliance Inventory, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21, Quality of Life Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and General Self-efficacy Scale. The measures were administered to patients referred for psychological services to a rural primary health-care service. Participants were recruited from both current and new patients of psychologists providing the service. Both the ORS and SRS demonstrated good reliability and concurrent validity with their longer alternatives. The ORS also evidenced significant correlations with measures of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and quality of life. The ORS and SRS offer benefits such as cost-effectiveness, brevity, simple administration, and easy interpretation of results in the measurement of clinical outcomes when compared to their longer counterparts. These results provide clear support for the adoption of brief outcome assessment measures in psychological practice.