Selecting a rating scale for evaluating services to the chronically mentally ill.

A multi-attribute utility analysis employing ideal outcome measure criteria was applied to seven brief rating scales in order to identify the best performing instrument. A variety of judgmental data were collected from therapists working in mental health service agencies and from evaluation research experts to contrast the performance of the seven rating scales on criteria for selecting outcome measures developed by an NIMH task force. Transformations of the performance data were weighted in accordance with priorities assigned to the criteria by the task force. Comparing the sums of the weighted scores across scales, two rating scales emerged as preferred selections for monitoring the effectiveness of programs that serve the chronically mentally ill.