Effects of Routine Feedback to Clinicians on Youth Mental Health Outcomes: A Randomized Cluster Design

• Symptoms and Functioning Severity Scale [ Time Frame: The SFSS is completed at intake by youths and caregivers, then by youths, caregivers, and clinicians at the 1st treatment session and every other session (week) thereafter for as long as the youth is enrolled in the intervention (CFS). ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  The SFSS is part of a battery of clinical measures (Peabody Treatment Progress Battery:PTPB) developed by the researchers. It assesses change in closely-timed repeated measurements. Parallel forms are completed by youths, caregivers, and clinicians at the end of treatment sessions. The SFSS includes 32 items that ask the respondent to rate how frequently in the last two weeks the youth experienced emotions or exhibited behaviors linked to typical mental health disorders for youths (e.g., ADHD, conduct disorder, depression).
  
  

• Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale-CEPI (BMSLSS-CEPI) [ Time Frame: The BMSLSS-CEPI is completed by the youth at intake, at the 2nd treatment session, and every 8 weeks thereafter for as long as the youth is enrolled in the intervention (CFS). ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  The BMSLSS-CEPI is a revised version of the Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (Seligson, Huebner, & Valois, 2003). The BMSLSS-CEPI was designed to assess global life satisfaction as well as domain specific satisfaction with family, friends, school, self and living environment. Life satisfaction may be targeted directly or indirectly with treatment and thus can be thought of as a positive, or strengths-based, indicator of treatment progress (outcome).
  
  
• The Children's Hope Scale (CHS) [ Time Frame: The CHS is completed by the youth at intake and every 8 weeks thereafter for as long as the youth is enrolled in the intervention (CFS). ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  The CHS (Snyder et al., 1997), a public domain measure used with youth in this study, assesses youth hopefulness. The measure asks youths to report on their ability to generate paths toward goals and persevere toward those goals. Youth hopefulness is conceptually an important factor in the successful treatment of emotional or behavioral disorders, constituting an outcome that may be affected by the treatment process.
  
  

The primary approach to improving psychosocial treatment for youths has been to implement evidence-supported treatments (ESTs) in community services. However, this approach has not produced clear cut results of effectiveness. A recently developed alternative is to improve outcomes through routine measurement and feedback to clinicians and supervisors. The investigators used a cluster randomized experiment with 28 sites affiliated with a national behavioral health organization to assess whether clients of clinicians who were scheduled to receive weekly feedback on their clients' progress would improve faster than clients of clinicians who were not scheduled to receive weekly feedback.