Whilst NHS Talking Therapies routinely administer psychometric tests at each therapy session, these results tell us nothing about their experience. A start could be made by using the Patient Global Impression Scale of Improvement [PGI-I Hossack and Woo (2014)], administered at the end of treatment, this asks clients to indicate how much they believed to have improved compared to before treatment using the 7 point scale below;
| 1 very much better | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 very much worse |
lower scores indicating higher improvement.
This is a real-world metric, unlike psychometric tests administered for an unreliably diagnosed disorder. But it is only a snap-shot of the person’s functioning at that point in time. It needs complementing by a standardised diagnostic interview that assesses the duration of recovery, commonly taken to mean at least 8 consecutive weeks free of the disorder.
The scale could also be used in secondary care and private practice, where there is an almost total lack of reliable evaluation.
Dr Mike Scott