Goal Attainment Scaling: A Responsive Measure of Client Outcomes

Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) was developed by Kiresuk and Sherman in 1968. Although highly criticized in the early years of its conception, GAS is beginning to be recognized as a reliable, valid, and responsive outcome measurement approach. This article describes the application of GAS, using elderly home health care clients as an example. Reliability and validity issues are examined. Criticism of GAS is often based on traditional psychometric assumptions associated with normative assessment and does not reflect the evaluative nature of the GAS methodology. The advantages and limitations of GAS are discussed. Goal Attainment Scaling has the potential to demonstrate the important contribution home health care programs make to clients by measuring the change that has occurred during their admission to the program. This kind of information is required by policy makers, case managers, and home health care providers to develop policy, allocate limited resources, and offer appropriate and effective services.