Outcome assessment: suggestions for agency practice

Managed care proponents emphasize outcome research to determine the cost-effectiveness of interventions, suggesting the use of multimeasurement procedures that will assess both specific and general effects of interventions. Although most agencies can perform outcome assessment and outcome management, they have difficulty conducting meaningful outcome research. This articles provides an introduction to outcome research; discusses the concepts of statistical significance, effect size, and the meaningfulness of effects; and emphasizes the need for client value-based judgments regarding the effectiveness of interventions. To encourage agencies to use client-completed outcome assessment procedures, the steps needs to effectively do so are outlined.