We all feel pretty good when we help the clients we work with. After all, that’s what we want and what we’ve worked so hard to do! But how do we really know the degree to which we help them? They can tell us they feel better (or not). But how do we get a clear picture of just how well (or not well) they progress in our work with them? Measurement-based care for mental health to the rescue….
Research actually finds that therapists often have difficulty noticing when their clients aren’t doing well. It is also common to overestimate how well clients progress. This is the reason medical doctors measure vital signs whenever you see them.
Then how do we know we are helping clients? What therapist resources are available to find this out? Measurement-based care in mental health is a tool that can help clarify how well your clients are doing.
There are three key components of measurement-based care: (1) Collect information about client progress (usually via research-validated survey measures). (2) Share these results and your interpretations with clients. (3) Act on these results by making any necessary changes in your approach to their therapy.
For example, measurement-based care findings may help you emphasize working on a particular problem. Or they may lead you to recommend a particular course of therapy or to change course if therapy isn’t working.
This approach is shown to work well! Clients are more likely to improve when using this method. This is why major organizations like VA use this approach with the PCL-5 for PTSD, for example. Like anything, this method is not perfect. But evidence shows it to be more effective than not measuring at all.
So how do therapists use this method effectively? There are some good therapist resources out there for implementing measurement-based care. These include free assessment surveys and tools that give surveys and reports of findings. And keep an eye-out for bridge articles coming soon with more tips for how to effectively use measurement-based care in your own practice!
