title: Accounting for case manager effects in the evaluation of mental health services. Positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. The Effect of Training in a Strengths Model of Case Management on Client Outcomes in a Community Mental Health Center The Effect of a Case Management Intervention on Drug Treatment Entry Among Treatment-Seeking Injection Drug Users With and Without Comorbid Antisocial Personality Disorder Use of standardised outcome measures in adult mental health services: randomised controlled trial. Case management in the context of capitation financing: an evaluation of the strengths model The role of case management within a community support system: Partnership with psychosocial rehabilitation
abstract: Three methods of accounting for case manager effects in tests of the efficacy of mental health services are explored . These methods include ( a ) treating the case manager as a fixed factor , ( b ) treating the case manager as a r and om factor , and ( c ) examining service effects within the case manager . They are demonstrated with data from a nationally known case management program serving individuals with serious and persistent mental illness . Specifically , 3 conceptually distinct types of services provided or brokered by case managers are identified : habilitation-rehabilitation , community support , and traditional psychiatric services . The effectiveness of each in improving clients ' adjustment is then examined with multiple regression adjustment strategies and each of the 3 methods to account for case manager effects . The results provide strong support for effects attributable to case managers and some support for the efficacy of habilitation-rehabilitation and community support services beyond the effects of traditional psychiatric services Positive psychology has flourished in the last 5 years . The authors review recent developments in the field , including books , meetings , courses , and conferences . They also discuss the newly created classification of character strengths and virtues , a positive complement to the various editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( e. g. , American Psychiatric Association , 1994 ) , and present some cross-cultural findings that suggest a surprising ubiquity of strengths and virtues . Finally , the authors focus on psychological interventions that increase individual happiness . In a 6-group , r and om-assignment ,  placebo-controlled Internet study , the authors tested 5 purported happiness interventions and 1 plausible control exercise . They found that 3 of the interventions lastingly increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms . Positive interventions can supplement traditional interventions that relieve suffering and may someday be the practical legacy of positive psychology The purpose of this study was to determine theeffect on client outcomes produced by training casemanagers in a strengths model of case management . Outcomes of interest included client 's quality of life , vocation/education , residential living , hospitalization rate , hospital days , and symptoms . Italso compared the results obtained by the strengthsmodel with results of a generalist model .  Case managers at the experimental site were trained in thestrengths model .  Those at the control site received notraining . Data were collected at both sites prior totraining and three months later . Improvement in quality of life , symptoms , and vocational/educational outcomes were found in the experimental group . Quality of life and vocational/educational outcomes were betterin the experimental group than in the control group We examined the effect of a case management intervention on drug treatment entry among injection drug users ( IDUs ) with and without comorbid antisocial personality disorder ( ASPD ) . Injection drug users attending the Baltimore Needle Exchange Program who sought and were granted referrals to opioid agonist treatment  were r and omized to receive a strengths-based case management intervention or passive referral . Of 162 IDUs , 22.8 % met the DSM-IV criteria for ASPD . Compared to those without ASPD , IDUs with comorbid ASPD who spent 25 or more minutes with their case manager prior to their treatment entry date were 3.51 times more likely to enter treatment than those receiving less than 5 min , adjusting for intervention status , race , and treatment site ( 95 % confidence interval 1.04–11.89 ) . Providing case management services to IDUs with comorbid ASPD may facilitate treatment entry and reduce the negative consequences of drug abuse BACKGROUND Routine use of st and ardised outcome measures is not universal . AIMS To evaluate the effectiveness of st and ardised outcome assessment . METHOD A r and omised controlled trial , involving 160 representative adult mental health patients and paired staff ( IS RCT N16971059 ) . The intervention group ( n=101 ) ( a ) completed monthly postal question naires assessing needs , quality of life , mental health problem severity and therapeutic alliance , and ( b ) received 3-monthly feedback . The control group ( n=59 ) received treatment as usual . RESULTS The intervention did not improve primary outcomes of patient-rated unmet need and of quality of life . Other subjective secondary outcome measures were also not improved . The intervention reduced psychiatric inpatient days ( 3.5 v.16.4 mean days , bootstrapped 95 % CI1.6 - 25.7 ) , and hence service use costs were 2586 UK pounds ( 95 % CI 102 - 5391 ) less for intervention-group patients . Net benefit analysis indicated that the intervention was cost-effective . CONCLUSIONS Routine use of outcome measures as implemented in this study did not improve subjective outcomes , but was associated with reduced psychiatric inpatient admissions Conclusions The results of the present evaluation strongly support the essential need for formal case management in providing community support for individuals with serious mental illness . When compared to a control condition in which consumers received CMHC-wide support from therapists , day treatment personnel , and residential staff , the Strengths case management program was considerably more effective in achieving three specific community support goals : increasing consumer personal incomes , providing needed social support , and maintaining consumer physical health . Surprisingly , the case management program was also found to be effective in achieving a goal that is usually not targeted by case management : consumers in the case management group improved in therapist-assessed psychiatric symptomatology more than control group consumers . Since the control and the case management groups had comparable increases in attendance at primary therapy and medication management over the study period , we conclude that the case management program was directly responsible for the improvements in psychiatric symptoms within its caseload . Whether these improvements in mood and cognitive processing are attributable to co-occuring improvements in quality of life variables ( i.e. , social support or personal income ) or whether psychiatric improvement is more directly attributable to case managerin vivo counseling must be decided by future research .While formal Strengths case management appears to be efficacious as a community support— and perhaps as a psychiatric rehabilitation — intervention , a formal program of case management does not appear to be essential to CMHC preparation for Medicaid capitated financing . The Valley Mental Health case management program significantly increased consumers ' residential autonomy and attendance at primary therapy , but improvements on these two Medicaid-related variables were nearly matched within the control group through the efforts of other program staff . Taken as a whole , the study findings demonstrate that a formal case management program can work effectively in league with other CMHC programs to achieve specific managed care-related administrative goals , but that these delineated administrative goals can also be attained through a CMHC-wide mobilization of dedicated front-line staff The Strengths model of team case management was assessed relative to an existing high quality psychosocial rehabilitation program that informally provided many services typical of case management ( e.g. , service linkage , monitoring , and consumer advocacy ) . The experimental evaluation triangulated consumer and family member responses with mental health professional reports and consumer records of hospitalization and crisis center contacts . An analysis of data from these four sources revealed that one year after full program implementation , consumers who received case management in conjunction with psychosocial rehabilitation functioned at a higher level of competency and experienced significantly lower psychiatric symptomatology than consumers who received only psychosocial rehabilitation . Implication s for the successful integration of case management into an existing community support program are discussed
target: The Client Assessment of Strengths , Interests and Goals ( CASIG ) had the strongest psychometric evidence .
  The SAW and CASIG assessment s can be tentatively recommended within clinical practice , although the evidence for all strengths assessment s is currently limited .
  These categories form the basis of an empirically based definition of strengths that could be used as a conceptual foundation for new clinical assessment
background: Strengths assessment s focus on the individual 's talents , abilities , re sources , and strengths .
  No systematic review of strengths assessment s for use within mental health population s has been published .
  The aims of this study were to describe and evaluate strengths assessment s  for use within mental health services .