Patient Generated Goals in Mental Health: Better Outcomes?

Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

Status: Completed

Conditions: Mental Health

Treatments: Other: Goal Based Outcomes; Other: Treatment as Usual

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03527914

8374

Details and patient eligibility

About

Researchers believe that clinical care can be improved by engaging patients and families directly in planning the care process. Engagement efforts have included asking patients/families to provide information about whether they are getting better. But what does "getting better" mean? The merits of surveys, questionnaires, or rating scales have been widely discussed. Should they be disorder-specific or global? What should the investigators do if patients have difficulty reading or understanding these instruments? Investigators in the United Kingdom have proposed a simple solution: ask the patients and families what their primary goal treatment goal is and track progress together on that goal (Goal-Based Outcomes or GBO). Although there has been some work to suggest that this is helpful, it has never been tested in a controlled way. This study will do a randomized controlled trial to test whether GBO improves clinical care in child and youth mental health. Although the study will use this in child and youth mental health care, if it is successful, it can be tested and applied in any care setting with any type of medical problem. This could change practice at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and throughout Canada.

Enrollment: 152 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 4 to 18 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Children and youth
• Attending outpatient mental health services at CHEO

Exclusion criteria

-Child and youth attending group therapy at CHEO Outpatient Mental Health Services

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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152 participants in 2 patient groups

Treatment as Usual

Active Comparator group

Description:

Patients will receive their standard care at the Outpatient Mental Health Service

Treatment:

Other: Treatment as Usual

Goal Based Outcomes

Experimental group

Description:

Up to three goals can be tracked during treatment, although patients often decide to just focus on one. Progress on the goal is then quantitatively rated by the patient, with the provider, at every appointment. Adjustments in the care are then made in an iterative process to ensure that the goal will be met.

Treatment:

Other: Goal Based Outcomes