Practitioners’ Attitudes Toward the Use of Treatment Progress and Outcomes Data in Child Mental Health Services

Abstract

This study focused on practitioners’ attitudes toward child mental health services data collection and outcomes measurement in university-based and community-based clinics. It is relevant to the burgeoning field of empirically based mental health therapy management because it examines one potential barrier to psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy strategies (i.e., practitioners’ attitudes toward outcomes measurement) that are informed by real-time, clinically relevant data. Two site differences were noted regarding the utility of specific questionnaires and the perceived burden of conducting outcomes measurement. At both sites, practitioners held positive attitudes about outcomes measurement. Compared with psychologists and other child mental health specialists, psychiatrists had less favorable attitudes toward outcomes evaluation. Practitioners who rated outcomes evaluation as more important also perceived less burden associated with such evaluation efforts. Increased understanding of the utility of systematic clinical data collection is more likely to occur in an organizational culture in which treatment progress and outcomes measurement is integral to clinical work.