Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) is gaining traction in psychotherapy and psychological treatments. Session-by-session monitoring with multi-item self-report questionnaires is also one of the cornerstones of the influential Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) -program in Britain.
There is promise that routinely measuring helps identify cases where therapy is “off-track” and can help larger service providers improve their outcomes. However, self-report measures also have known problems. What risks need to be navigated as measuring becomes widespread? Can these outcome measures be misleading for certain patient groups? How long will questionnaires be the norm and what role might smart watches, AI and the tech giants play in the future?
In this episode, we discuss outcome measurement with Dr. Chris Evans. He is co-author of the book Outcome measures and evaluation in counselling and psychotherapy and one of the main developers of the widely used Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE) system of outcome measures.
Timestamps
0:00 Pros and cons of using multi-item self-report questionnaires
9:26 Which patients does routine outcome measuring work for
15:40 Intuiting what you are expected to answer
19:15 A systemic bias and lack of research into the limitations of our methods
25:50 Identifying “off-tack” cases
31:40 The future: Where will we go from self-report questionnaires?
38:15 Need for data on returning patients vs. confidentiality
42:19 Using new technologies, bodily reactions, AI and multidisciplinary research
47:44 The IAPT model and it’s broader effects
53:50 The industrialization of therapy and therapy research
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The Science of Personalizing Psychological Treatments (with Dr. John Norcross)
Bruce Wampold - Moving Beyond Comparing Psychotherapies
Should We Stop Prescribing Antidepressants for Depression? (with Prof. Joanna Moncrieff)