BACKGROUND

Although routine outcome monitoring (ROM) has been developed and widely used in the course of patient centered outcome research in the Netherlands, so far the technique has hardly ever been used to improve the treatment of individual patients.

AIM

To describe how a rom technique based on the principles of shared decision-making (SDM) was developed and evaluated at the Center for Body, Mind and Health at GGz Breburg, a specialised mental health institution in the Netherlands.

METHOD

We have developed a conceptual model for SDM that involves patient participation and the use of evidence-based decision-aids with cut-off scores.

RESULTS

According to the conceptual model for SDM that we developed, the patient and the health professional involved took 'shared' decisions in three phases; the decisions related to triage, the drawing-up of a treatment plan and a follow-up treatment course. At the end of the 6 month intake-phase 7 of the 67 patients who were deemed eligible for ROM/SDM were dropped from the study because they were incapable of performing ROM assessments. Due to diagnostic advice and referral at the end of the intake-phase, 25 patients did not require further treatment. Of the remaining 35 patients, 33 delivered at least one follow-up ROM assessment during the subsequent treatment phases. In these patients somatic and psychiatric symptoms were found to be significantly reduced.

CONCLUSION

ROM combined with sdm can be used successfully with patients who have a combination of physical and psychiatric symptoms and the technique can be applied by the professional in charge. Very few patients dropped out of the follow-up measurements and somatic as well as depressive or psychiatric symptoms diminished significantly. These findings indicate that a Randomised Clinical Trial is warranted in order to test the effectiveness of sdm combined with ROM as a decision-making instrument.