Evaluating Psychological Therapies Services: A review of outcome measures and their utility

We describe the use of a number of outcome measures that have been used over the past eight years to evaluate adult psychological therapies services in the Wakefield & Pontefract locality of the South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust. The psychological therapies service now has a unique database of outcome measures completed by 5563 clients, which has been used nationally and internationally for service evaluation and research purposes. Internally, the database has informed the clinical service, allowing prioritising of referrals and feedback to clinicians and referral agencies on the quality of the service and appropriateness of referrals. We describe the properties and intended use of the measures, the way results are fed back to the service and evaluate the usefulness of the measures in routine service settings. Implications for psychological therapies and other mental health services are discussed including: • Choice of generic or specific outcome measures • How the measures relate to one another • Clinical usefulness of the measures, including risk assessment • Interpretation of results, including availability of norms and how to assess change • Practical utility, including cost