Outcomes and Quality of Care Research Program

Overview

This program supports multidisciplinary research — especially mixed methods — to characterize, examine, assess, and improve the quality and outcomes of mental health services; to develop tools to monitor outcomes and quality; to investigate what factors affect quality (including processes such as adherence, participatory decision-making and other qualities such as culture, age, personality, organizational factors, practice type, clinician training, experience, and satisfaction, financial incentives, family "buy-in," etc.). The program also supports efforts to examine the impact of coordination of treatment and other care, across settings and over time, on quality and outcomes.

Areas of Emphasis

• The relationship between patient or client satisfaction and quality, as defined by treatment guidelines or standards of care, or to client outcomes and whether these relationships hold constant across cultural groups, disorders, and age groups.
• The relationship between typically measured aspects of quality (such as fidelity to the model) and client or parent satisfaction, clinician motivation and involvement, and clinical and functional outcomes for clients.
• Methods for evaluating quality in psychotherapeutic Internet interventions. Can client satisfaction and clinical and functional outcomes be assessed online? Do certain clinical, cultural, or age groups respond better to online therapy than to face-to-face therapy?
• Development of innovative and meaningful quality measures that reflect multiple stakeholder perspectives.

Contact

David Chambers, D.Phil.
Program Chief
6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 7133, MSC 9631
301-443-3747, dchamber@mail.nih.gov