Strategies for evaluating the outcome of community services for the chronically mentally ill.

A growing number of community support services are being designed for the chronically mentally ill with the goal of improving this population's adjustment to noninstitutional settings. Program planners anticipate that a comprehensive array of psychiatry and other human services will also benefit families of the mentally ill, staff working with the mentally ill, and communities in which these persons reside. Given this complex services delivery model the authors discuss strategies that must be established for evaluating the effectiveness of community support services. They analyze the methodological issues in designing pertinent outcome studies and suggest research priorities for studying the various target populations and other variables.