PSYCHLOPS is a new mental health outcome measure. It has been developed by a group of primary health-care professionals and therapists based at the Department of General Practice and Primary Care, King's College London.
The development of PSYCHLOPS was strongly influenced by Depression Alliance who provided a user perspective and consulted widely during the drafting stage. PSYCHLOPS has also been approved by the Plain English Campaign and carries its 'Crystal Mark'.
PSYCHLOPS is a short one-page outcome measure designed to be a sensitive indicator of change, after therapy. It should be used as a before-and-after measure. In validation studies, it has proved a more sensitive indicator of change than commonly used 'nomothetic' instruments. In other words, if a client improves after therapy, this improvement is more likely to show up using PSYCHLOPS.
Because PSYCHLOPS only measures change in those individual items chosen by clients it cannot readily be used to compare the severity of psychological distress between individuals or groups. That is best done using standardised measures which ask the same questions to all clients.
If however, an instrument is needed which measures change in those issues of importance to the client, then PSYCHLOPS is the way to tap into these issues. It is ideally suited to situations where clients present with varied mental health issues which might not be adequately captured by standardised instruments.
PSYCHLOPS is currently copyright but there is no charge for reproduction on paper for researchers and charities. A small one-off charge is made to individuals and a larger one-off charge is made to NHS Trusts or other organisations who want to use PSYCHLOPS.
Specimen copies are available here for download in PDF format but may not be altered in any way.
Copies without the "specimen" label can be obtained from Marilyn Peters
| Total visits to Psychlops.org pages since 21.x.07 by free web page counter |
