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Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 3/2010

01-03-2010 | Original Paper

The Met Needs Index: a new metric for outcome assessment in mental health services

Authors: Erik Wennström, Lars Berglund, Johan Lindbäck

Published in: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology | Issue 3/2010

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Abstract

Background

No apt method has been available to assess and monitor the responsiveness of services in meeting ongoing needs of patients with long-term mental illness. The present study examines the utility of a new metric for such a purpose, the Met Needs Index (MNI), applied to the Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN).

Methods

The MNI was estimated as an aggregated measure of met need or beneficial outcome, based on annual staff rated CAN-assessments of 321 outpatients (76% psychotic disorders) in psychiatric care during 7 years. Corresponding confidence intervals were estimated with the bootstrap percentile method.

Results

The overall MNI was estimated at 0.71 (95% CI 0.69–0.74), indicating that identified needs in general were met during 71% of the intervals between the annual assessments. However, the MNI for specific need domains of the CAN ranged from 0.89 (95% CI 0.84–0.93) for ‘food’ to 0.11 (95% CI 0.07–0.16) for ‘sexual expression’, indicating a significant variation in responsiveness of services to different types of need in this patient population.

Conclusions

The MNI seems to be a useful and powerful metric for outcome assessment and monitoring of psychiatric services from a needs assessment approach.
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Metadata
Title
The Met Needs Index: a new metric for outcome assessment in mental health services
Authors
Erik Wennström
Lars Berglund
Johan Lindbäck
Publication date
01-03-2010
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology / Issue 3/2010
Print ISSN: 0933-7954
Electronic ISSN: 1433-9285
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-009-0080-y

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