Abstract
BackgroundMental health outcome measures are used to monitor the quality and effectiveness of mental health services. There is also a growing expectation for implementation of routine measurement and measures being used by clinicians as a feedback monitoring system to improve client outcomes. The recent focus in Australia and elsewhere targeting mental health services to young people aged 12–25 years has meant that outcome measures relevant to this age range are now needed. This is a shift from the traditional divide of child and adolescent services versus adult services with a transitioning age at 18 years. This systematic review is the first to examine mental health outcome measures that are appropriate for the 12 to 25 year age range.MethodsMEDLINE and PsychINFO databases were systematically searched to identify studies using mental health outcome measures with young people aged 12 to 25 years. The search strategy complied with the relevant sections of the PRISMA statement.ResultsA total of 184 published articles were identified, covering 29 different outcome measures. The measures were organised into domains that consisted of eight measures of cognition and emotion, nine functioning measures, six quality of life measures, and six multidimensional mental health measures. No measures were designed specifically for young people aged 12 to 25 years and only two had been used by clinicians as a feedback monitoring system. Five measures had been used across the whole 12 to 25 year age range, in a range of mental health settings and were deemed most appropriate for this age group.ConclusionsWith changes to mental health service systems that increasingly focus on early intervention in adolescence and young adulthood, there is a need for outcome measures designed specifically for those aged 12 to 25 years. In particular, multidimensional measures that are clinically meaningful need to be developed to ensure quality and effectiveness in youth mental health. Additionally, outcome measures can be clinically useful when designed to be used within routine feedback monitoring systems.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-015-0664-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Mental health outcome measures are used to monitor the quality and effectiveness of mental health services
There were three measures used with young people below 18 years that had an adult countermeasure used at follow-up: the YSR (YASR), Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) (GAS), and HoNOSCA (HoNOS)
Three measures are considered to be less appropriate for general youth mental health, namely: the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), because it is used primarily with psychosis; the YSR, as it was designed for clients under the age of 18 years; and the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), which is mainly used with non-clinical samples to track naturalistic change
Summary
Mental health outcome measures are used to monitor the quality and effectiveness of mental health services. The recent focus in Australia and elsewhere targeting mental health services to young people aged 12–25 years has meant that outcome measures relevant to this age range are needed. This is a shift from the traditional divide of child and adolescent services versus adult services with a transitioning age at 18 years. Kwan and Rickwood BMC Psychiatry (2015) 15:279 resources are limited and need to be distributed to achieve the best outcomes [4] It is essential as a component of ongoing service-level quality improvement. Routine outcome measurement improves clinical practice when it is part of a feedback monitoring system for clinicians [7]. Emerging research in youth mental health contexts suggests similar benefits of feedback monitoring systems for younger clients [11, 12]
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