The Development of an Individualized, Problem-Oriented Psychiatric Outcome Measure

The authors use the development of one individualized mental health outcome measure, the Major Problem Rating System, to examine psychometric problems for instruments tailored to individual patients. A 280-item computer interview taken by the patient at the outset of treatment solves some reliability and validity problems by standardizing the menu from which a unique set ofproblems is derived Follow-up improvement ratings are made only for baseline-identifiedproblems. Decisions in the design of an individualized measure, testretest reliability, patterns of internal relationships among subscales, and external relationships with other outcome measures are provided.