I highly recommend CORE-OM or CORE-SFB with only 18 items

http://www.coreims.co.uk/download-pdfs

It's copyleft and designed for this type of purpose.

Good luck!

http://www.coreims.co.uk/download-pdfs

Dear Stephen, 

Check these papers out:

Evaluating the efficacy of a web-based self-help intervention with and without chat counseling in reducing the cocaine use of problematic cocaine users: the study protocol of a pragmatic three-arm randomized controlled trial.

Schaub MP, Maier LJ, Wenger A, Stark L, Berg O, Beck T, Quednow BB, Haug S.

BMC Psychiatry. 2015 Jul 10;15(1):156.

Comparative Effectiveness of a Practice-Based Comprehensive Lifestyle Intervention vs. Single Session Counseling in Hypertensive Blacks.

Schoenthaler A, Luerassi L, Silver S, Odedosu T, Kong J, Ravenell J, Teresi JA, Ogedegbe G.

Am J Hypertens. 2015 Jul 1. pii: hpv100.

Outcomes of a randomised controlled trial of a complex genetic counselling intervention to improve family communication.

Hodgson J, Metcalfe S, Gaff C, Donath S, Delatycki MB, Winship I, Skene L, Aitken M, Halliday J.

Eur J Hum Genet. 2015 Jul 1.

Hi Stephen,

Check out the articles below - they should give you a good start to explore this area.

Cheers,

Arun

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1994.tb00941.x/abstract

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1990.tb01484.x/abstract

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=142241&fileId=S0033291702006979

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/180/1/51.short

depends on what your outcome it; is it depression (then look at the PHQ9 or the Becks Depression Inventory)... or quality of life (WHOQOL)... or Anxiety (Becks Anxiety Inventory)... of course you need to take baseline measures of these too, but theyre fairly reliable and frequently utilised scales to measure the outcome of treatment. Good luck Stephen!

depends on what your outcome it; is it depression (then look at the PHQ9 or the Becks Depression Inventory)... or quality of life (WHOQOL)... or Anxiety (Becks Anxiety Inventory)... of course you need to take baseline measures of these too, but theyre fairly reliable and frequently utilised scales to measure the outcome of treatment. Good luck Stephen!

Working Alliance Inventory (WAI © A. O. Horvath 1981, 1984, 1992).

As an Occupational therapy student in U.S. I have worked with a measurment tool called the "COPM" or Canadian Occupational Performance Measure. The focus of this tool is for clients to be able to measure how well they perform daily activities as well as how well they "feel" they have done on the same activities. The results of which used to understand the clients abilities as well as their perceptions of their abilities. This is often used in mental health and  OT.

Scott

OT Student University of central Arkansas

As Aislinne Freeman mentioned, the key questions are: What are you trying to measure? What is your definition of success? If it is improvement in general psychiatric symptoms, then repeated administration of a measure like the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) would serve your purppose, if it is a specific condition you are treating, then a measure related to that would make more sense (the Beck or Hamilton Depression Scales, the Speilberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, etc) If you are measuring the therapeutic relationship, then the WAI that Laurent Auzoult suggested makes sense.

Can you let us know a little more about your program and what you would like to see happen that would let you know that the program is being successful?

Thanks

Following on from Airline and John it depends on what the counselling is designed to achieve and the philosophical stance you take on evidence. I attach attach a paper which looks at these issues. Good luck David Lane

In addition to the CORE suggested above, here are two other assessment systems for your consideration:

OQ:  http://www.oqmeasures.com/

The TOP: http://www.outcomereferrals.com/

They are used by many outpatient clinics & counseling centers.

As John C. Muran suggested, I recommend the OQ-45 . It is a useful and relatively brief tool to measure progress over the course of counselling and clients' changes in the level of distress, interpersonal functioning, and social role. It also gives comparisons as to how similar clients with good outcome do relative to your client. http://www.oqmeasures.com

Find the book edited by A. John Rush, Michael B. Fisher, and Deborah Blacker entitled "Handbook of psychiatric measures" (second edition, 2008, American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc).  Then, go to Chapter 11 (Patient Perception of Care Measures) where you will see examples of scales in response to your question.

I highly recommend CORE-OM or CORE-SFB with only 18 items

http://www.coreims.co.uk/download-pdfs

It's copyleft and designed for this type of purpose.

Good luck!

http://www.coreims.co.uk/download-pdfs

There are numerous tools in circulation out there. A large number are not necessarily well validated however are popular with clinicians. There are the generic questionnaires such as CORE as mentioned before which has been fairly well researched. However, to choose an instrument to suit a service needs some thought. The population/ conditions presenting, the amount of time that clients have to complete, how precise it needs to be (how well validated/ psychometrically sound), how clinically useful it is and cost should all be considered.

I'd like to endorse what Arun, John and Guillem have already said on the use of CORE-OM or its short version (CORE-SF), which has similar psychometric properties. If you want apply a single measure for several problems/symptoms it may be a good option, otherwise you might use specific scales.

Good Luck!  

The OQ-45, the Target Complaints Scale - very simple but ta surprisingly useful tool

Inventory of Interpersonal Problems - IIP

Hi all, take a look at the following (brilliant) book, edited by Heppner, P.R, Wampold, B.E, Kivlighan, D.M. (2008) Research Design in Counseling.Thompsons

Best, Rainer