Correlates of observer-rated active involvement in psychiatric treatment visits

Among people with serious mental illness, increased patient activation has been linked to a range of key recovery outcomes. To date, patient activation has been measured largely through self-report. The present study investigated correlates of a new tool that assesses active involvement through rating audio-recordings of treatment visits. The key domains of patient activation assessed in visits included: patients asking questions, discussing with providers instances of being active in managing illness outside the session, talking about goals, bringing up concerns, making evaluative statements about treatment, setting the agenda for the visit, and making requests about the course of treatment. The new coding scheme proved to be a feasible and reliable method for identifying multi-faceted behavioral indicators of patient activation. Contrary to our hypotheses, in a sample of 166 people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses, self-reported activation and observer-rated indices of activation were often not correlated or correlated in unexpected directions with the new behavioral measure of patient activation. This suggests the nature of patient activation may be complex and work is needed to understand how observer-rated and self-rated activation may predict differential recovery outcomes.