Measuring quality of life for people with common mental health problems

BACKGROUND It is important to identify valid and acceptable outcome measures so that interventions evaluating common mental health problems can be assessed appropriately. Some advocate the use of generic preference-based measures claimed to be applicable for all health interventions, but others argue that they are insensitive for common mental health problems. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure (CORE-OM), to be used in cost-effectiveness studies in people with common mental health problems.

METHOD The CORE-OM measure was tested for completeness, acceptability and responsiveness in a pilot study. Analyses for missing data, distribution of scores, and standardised response means (SRMs) were calculated.

RESULTS Missing data did not exceed 5% for any of the CORE-6D items both at baseline and follow-up. The overall comprehension rate was high, and only 19 participants (14%) requested clarifications to complete the questionnaire. As expected in a feasibility study, there was a small and non-significant SRM.

CONCLUSION CORE-OM is a valid and acceptable instrument to evaluate quality of life for people with common mental health problems. More research is needed with larger sample sizes to compare CORE-6D with other condition specific quality of life instruments.