Measuring psychological outcomes in paediatric settings: Making outcomes meaningful using client-defined perspectives

Abstract

There is a growing drive to develop and implement patient-reported outcome measures within paediatric health services, particularly for young people living with chronic health conditions; however, there is little consensus on how best to do this in meaningful ways within psychological services working alongside medical teams. This reflective commentary considers some of the challenges of collecting psychological outcome measures in paediatric services and considers alternative approaches to making outcome measurement meaningful. All measures have their limitations; however, they become meaningless if they are not used in meaningful and considered ways with young people. Client-defined outcome measurement, such as goal-based outcome measures, alongside other types of measurement, can capture outcomes of meaning to young people living with chronic health conditions, and can enable them to feed into a shared decision-making process.