Rex S. Green, PhD, CQE, RHIT, GreenScene Results Group, 1240 Gershwin Terrace, #106, Fremont, CA 94538, 4086791910, RSGreenScene@sbcglobal.net and Ronald W Manderscheid, PhD, Chief, Survey and Analysis Branch, SAMHSA/Center for Mental Health Services, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857.

The purpose of this paper is to share recent developments simplifying the assessment of mental health services effectiveness. Commonly employed assessment procedures measure the amount of change over time that a recipient of services achieves. Two or more occasions for administering the questionnaire are required, and control groups must be formed to detect the amount of change occurring due to service activities. Six years ago the Mental Health Statistics Improvement Program (MHSIP) developed a questionning format to detect whether clients experienced any improvement due to the services received, based on only one assessment. These questions are included in the MHSIP surveys available at a website for widespread use. In parallel but independent developments, the first author developed a similar approach for assessing the productivity, or amount of change attributable to services, of other types of human services. The advantages of adding this assessment approach to mental health services research studies will be elaborated. Also, guidelines for constructing more questions of the same type and scoring suggestions will be provided.

Learning Objectives: Session attendees will be able to

• Describe the key differences between assessing changes in clients over time versus assessing the productivity of service activities.
• Apply measures of service productivity along with other measures of the effectiveness of services.

Keywords: Assessments, Adult and Child Mental Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.