Adolescent treatment outcome in a community mental health center

To assess the effectiveness of a community mental health center outpatient adolescent treatment program, outcome measures were completed by the parents of 50 consecutively admitted adolescent patients who were evaluated and treated with one of three therapy modalities. Their results were compared to outcome measures of 29 non-treated adolescent control subjects. Also, self-report outcome measures were completed by 30 treatment subjects. The results demonstrated a significant positive change in the study group following treatment as compared with the control group. Each of the treatment modalities used with the study group was associated with improvement. The staffing referral mechanism used to determine the particular treatment modality for each patient was shown to be consistently and appropriately implemented.