Enhancing the patient involvement in outcomes: a study protocol of personalised outcome measurement in the treatment of substance misuse

Abstract

Involving patients in treatment is becoming increasingly popular in mental health [Sales & Alves: Personalized evaluation of psychological treatments: A review of tools and research designs, submitted]. However, in substance misuse treatment settings, the patient perspective about treatment tends to be overlooked. This has been cited as a key priority by Orford et al. [Addiction, 103: 875-885, 2008] who included patient feedback about treatment as one of ten areas requiring an urgent paradigm shift in addiction research and practice. This project will apply an innovative method to involve substance misuse patients in psychological therapies, by asking them to suggest topics to evaluate their treatment. These topics suggested by patients can be written as a list of personalised items, so-called as patient-generated outcome measures (PGOM). Despite its patient-friendly features, PGOM’s have never been used in this population, which is what this project aims to overcome.