Assessments of community mental health support systems: A key informant approach

This article describes the development of a ‘key informant survey’ to assess the performance of local systems of care for persons with a chronic mental illness. The measure yields ratings of: (1) the extent to which clients experience service delivery problems in 11 community support system elements, (2) overall performance of the community support system, and (3) the performance of local mental health authorities. Following pre-testing, the survey was administered to 699 respondents in nine U.S. cities. Internal consistency coefficients were found to be within acceptable ranges for all of the scales across all nine cities. Analyses comparing mean values for performance ratings showed that the nine sites could be arranged into three groups representing high, medium and low system performance. These findings support observations from site visits conducted over several years and suggest that the survey is a valid instrument for assessing local systems of care.

[1]  H. Goldman,et al.  The Chronically Mentally Ill: Assessing Community Support Programs , 1982 .

[2]  J. C. Turner,et al.  the nimh community support program: pilot approach to a needed social reform* , 1978 .

[3]  M. Shore,et al.  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental Illness: an overview. , 1990, Hospital & community psychiatry.

[4]  Margaret J. Gunter,et al.  Strategies for Increasing the Rigor of Qualitative Methods in Evaluation of Health Care Programs , 1990 .

[5]  L. Aiken,et al.  Private foundations in health affairs. A case study of the development of a national initiative for the chronically mentally ill. , 1986, The American psychologist.

[6]  K. Tierney,et al.  Evaluating the effectiveness of countywide mental health care systems , 2004, Community Mental Health Journal.

[7]  H H Goldman,et al.  Evaluating the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program on chronic mental illness. , 1994, The Milbank quarterly.

[8]  H. Babigian,et al.  Rochester: a comprehensive capitation experiment. , 1989, New directions for mental health services.

[9]  B. Kable.  Mental health. , 2005, Australian family physician.

[10]  C. Clifford Attkisson,et al.  Evaluation of Human Service Programs , 1977 .

[11]  I. Lescohier,et al.  2 Service Integration: Real Versus Illusory Solutions to Welfare Dilemmas , 1978 .

[12]  H. Goldman,et al.  Public health care for the chronically mentally ill: Financing operating costs issues and options for local leadership , 1986, Administration in mental health.

[13]  S. Sieber.  The Integration of Fieldwork and Survey Methods , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[14]  D M Steinwachs,et al.  Design for the national evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental Illness. , 1990, Hospital & community psychiatry.

[15]  Joseph P. Morrissey,et al.  Network analysis methods for mental health service system research : a comparison of two community support systems , 1985 .

[16]  L. Bachrach,et al.  Overview: model programs for chronic mental patients. , 1980, The American journal of psychiatry.

[17]  L. Aiken,et al.  Improving the care of patients with chronic mental illness. , 1987, The New England journal of medicine.