Impact of federally mandated program evaluation.

A survey was conducted of 46 representatives from nine randomly selected community mental health centers to examine the impact of the requirements for self-evaluation in the 1975 Community Mental Health Centers Amendments (P.L. 94-63). Compliance was generally high, but considerable variability existed in the topics studied and in the amount of resources devoted to each study. The three conditions associated with the utility of a study were (1) the reason for conducting it (2) the topic of the study and (3) the role of the evaluator in disseminating the findings and making them useful. Respondents saw a need for federal evaluation requirements, but favoured self-selection of evaluation topic areas based on individual center needs.