Schulberg H C
Community Ment Health J. 1981 Summer;17(2):132-42. doi: 10.1007/BF00754360.
The legislative pressures now dominating the realm of program accountability are moving the mental health system from process to outcome evaluations. While the need for this type of assessment is generally acknowledged, its methodological validity and policy-setting utility are the subject of considerable controversy. Despite these concerns, outcome studies are expected to retain their present priority for some time to come. It is, therefore, essential that administrators, clinicians, and evaluators gain much greater clarity about the outcome study's intrinsic properties and requirements. These include its diverse organizational purposes, the several target populations affected by clinical services, the wide-ranging indices of effectiveness, and the numerous data collection instruments of varying psychometric quality. The outcome study's power to conclude whether causal linkages indeed exist between the clinical intervention and client functioning depends upon the sophistication with which these issues are recognized and resolved.
目前主导项目问责领域的立法压力正推动心理健康系统从过程评估转向结果评估。虽然这种评估类型的必要性已得到普遍认可，但其方法的有效性和政策制定的实用性却备受争议。尽管存在这些担忧，但在未来一段时间内，结果研究预计仍将保持目前的优先地位。因此，管理人员、临床医生和评估人员必须更加清楚地了解结果研究的内在属性和要求。这些包括其多样的组织目的、受临床服务影响的多个目标人群、广泛的有效性指标，以及众多心理测量质量各异的数据收集工具。结果研究能否得出临床干预与服务对象功能之间是否确实存在因果联系的结论，取决于对这些问题的认识和解决的复杂程度。
