A Review and Analysis of Routine Outcome Measures for Forensic Mental Health Services

Considerable progress has been made in recent years towards implementing routine outcome measures within mental health services. However, the applicability of these tools for forensic-mental health populations has been questioned. A review and analysis was conducted to identify tools that could validly be applied in a forensic context, to provide a measure of functioning, recovery, risk, and placement pathways. Nineteen instruments were initially identified and evaluated against a hierarchy of criteria. While no tool assessed all domains of interest, six tools were ultimately considered to have potential utility as outcome measures for users of forensic mental health services.