Leonard Bickman

Psychological impairment in the wake of disaster: the disaster-psychopathology relationship

The present review examines the relationship between disaster occurrence and psychopathology outcome for 52 studies that used quantitative measures of such a relationship. Descriptive and inferential techniques were used to examine relationships among four sets of variables: (a) the characteristics of the victim population, (b) the characteristics of the disaster, (c) study methodology, and (d) the type of psychopathology. A small but consistently positive relationship between disasters and psychopathology was found. The distribution of effect-size estimates was significantly heterogeneous, and this heterogeneity was partially accounted for by methodological characteristics of the research. When controlling for methodology, victim and disaster characteristics also contributed variance to the disaster-psychopathology relationship. Implications for future research are outlined in view of these results.

A continuum of care: More is not always better.

This article describes an

The Caregiver Strain Questionnaire Measuring the Impact on the Family of Living with a Child with Serious Emotional Disturbance

80-million project designed to test whether a continuum of mental health and substance abuse services for children and adolescents is more cost-effective than services delivered in the more typical fragmented system. The study showed that an integrated continuum was successfully implemented that had better access, greater continuity of care, more client satisfaction, and treated children in less restrictive environments. However, the cost was higher, and clinical outcomes were no better than those at the comparison site. The article concludes that reform of mental health systems alone is unlikely to affect clinical outcomes. Cooperation is needed between mental health providers and researchers to better understand how to improve services delivered in the community.

Evaluating managed mental health services: The Fort Bragg experiment.

The impact on the family of having a family member with serious emotional problems has been an area of concern as deinstitutionalitation and managed care have shifted treatment to the community and primary caregiving to the family. Measures are needed to assess caregiver strain in a way that can lead to a better understanding of the phenomena, improve clinical interventions, and examine the outcomes of new treatment modalities on the clients family. In order to study the effects of this treatment shift, the Caregiver Strain Questionnaire (formerly the Burden of Care Questionnaire) was developed for use with families of children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders. Findings from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support the existence of three related but unique dimensions of strain experienced by parents of this population. This study adds to the current body of knowledge by suggesting that subjective caregiver strain has two components, and not the single form claimed in previous research. The results also indicate that the Caregiver Strain Questionnaire is a reliable and valid scale for the measurement of caregiver strain among families of children with emotional or behavioral disorders.

The Sage handbook of social research methods

Introduction. Methods. Description of the Evaluation Sample. Access and the Intake and Assessment Process. The Treatment Process and Service Utilization. Mental Health Outcomes. Cost Outcomes. Implications and Conclusions. Index.

The SAGE handbook of applied social research methods

The SAGE Handbook for Social Research Methods charts the new and evolving terrain of social research methodology, covering qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods in one volume The Handbook includes chapters on each phase of the research process: research design, methods of data collection, and the processes of analyzing and interpreting data. As its editors maintain, there is much more to research than learning skills and techniques; methodology involves the fit between theory, research questions, research design, and analysis. The book also includes several chapters that describe historical and current directions in social research, debating crucial subjects such as qualitative versus quantitative paradigms, how to judge the credibility of types of research, and the increasingly topical issue of research ethics.

The Top Patient Safety Strategies That Can Be Encouraged for Adoption Now

INTRODUCTION WHY A HANDBOOK OF APPLIED SOCIAL RESEARCH? - Leonard Bickman & Debra J. Rog PART I. APPROACHES TO APPLIED RESEARCH 1. Applied Research Design - Leonard Bickman & Debra J. Rog 2. Design Sensitivity: Statistical Power for Applied Experimental Research - Mark W. Lipsey & Sean M. Hurley 3. Practical Sampling - Gary T. Henry 4. Planning Ethically Responsible Research - Joan E. Sieber PART II. APPLIED RESEARCH DESIGNS 5. Randomized Controlled Trials for Evaluation and Planning - Robert F. Boruch, David Weisburd, Herbert M.Turner III, Allison Karpyn & Julia Littell 6. Quasi-experimentation - Melvin A. Mark & Charles S. Reichardt 7. Designing a Qualitative Study - Joseph A. Maxwell 8. How to Do Better Case Studies (with Illustrations from 20 Exemplary Case Studies) - Robert K. Yin 9. Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Research - Abbas Tashakkori & Charles Teddlie 10. Organizational Diagnosis - Michael I. Harrison 11. Research Synthesis and Meta-analysis - Harris M. Cooper, Erika A. Patall & James J. Lindsay PART III. PRACTICAL DATA COLLECTION 12. Design and Evaluation of Survey Questions - Floyd J. Fowler Jr. & Carol Cosenza 13. Internet Survey Methods - Samuel J. Best & Chase H. Harrison 14. Concept Mapping for Applied Social Research - Mary Kane & William Trochim 15. Mail Surveys - Thomas W. Mangione & Janet H. Van Ness 16. Methods for Sampling and Interviewing in Telephone Surveys - Paul J. Lavrakas 17. Ethnography - David M. Fetterman 18. Group Depth Interviews: Focus Group Research - David W. Stewart, Prem N. Shamdasani & Dennis W. Rook Applied Research Design - Leonard Bickman, Debra Rog Designing a Qualitative Study - Joseph Maxwell Practical Sampling - Gary Henry Planning Ethically Responsible Research - Joan Sieber Randomized Controlled Experiements for Evaluation - Robert Boruch Quasi-Experimentation - Melvin Mark, Charles Reichardt Abridged Version of Case Study Research: Design and Method - Robert Yin Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis - Harris Cooper, Erika Patall, James Lindsay Design and Evaluation of Survey Questions - Floyd Fowler, Carol Cosenza Organizational Diagnosis and Assessment - Michael Harrison Mail Surveys - Thomas Mangione Methods for Sampling and Interviewing in Telephone Surveys - Paul Lavrakas Ethnography - David Fetterman Focus Group Research: Exploration andDiscovery - David Stewart, Prem Shamdasani, Dennis Rook Concept Mapping - Mary Kane, William Trochim Internet Data Collection - Samuel Best Mixed Methods - Abbas Tashakkori, Charles Teddlie Comparative Analysis - Benoit Rihoux, Charles Ragin

Assessing the impact of parent and teacher agreement on diagnosing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Over the past 12 years, since the publication of the Institute of Medicines report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System,” improving patient safety has been the focus of considerable public and professional interest. Although such efforts required changes in policies; education; workforce; and health care financing, organization, and delivery, the most important gap has arguably been in research. Specifically, to improve patient safety we needed to identify hazards, determine how to measure them accurately, and identify solutions that work to reduce patient harm. A 2001 report commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “Making Health Care Safer: A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices” (1), helped identify some early evidence-based safety practices, but it also highlighted an enormous gap between what was known and what needed to be known.

A Measurement Feedback System (MFS) Is Necessary to Improve Mental Health Outcomes

This study examines the impact of interrater reliability on the diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A screening of 6171 elementary school children identified 1573 children with a high risk for ADHD according to teacher rating. Follow-up parent interviews and information from teachers were collected on 243 children. Before screening, health care professionals had diagnosed ADHD in 40% of the identified children. There was low agreement between the parent and teacher reports of ADHD symptoms according to DSM-IV–based questionnaires: Inattentive (r = .34, κ = 0.27), Hyperactive/Impulsive (r = .27, κ = 0.22), and Performance Impairment (r = .31, κ = 0.07). When the two-setting requirement was strictly enforced, poor interrater agreement decreased diagnostic rates for all three types of ADHD in this clinical sample: Inattentive (15%–5%), Hyperactive/Impulsive (11%–3%), and Combined (23%–7%). Parent and teacher agreement was low concerning ADHD symptoms and performance. The recommendation of multiple informants significantly decreased the prevalence. Allowing for observer disagreement by using more lenient core symptom scores could reduce the effect.

Advancing the science of patient safety

This article takes the position that mental health (MH) services for youths are unlikely to improve without a system of measurement that is administered frequently, is concurrent with treatment, and provides feedback. The system, which I characterize as a measurement feedback system (MFS), should include clinical processes (mediators), contexts (moderators), outcomes, and feedback to clinicians and supervisors. In spite of the routine call to collect and use outcome data in realworld treatment, progress has been painstakingly slow. 1Y3 For example, Garland and colleagues 4 found that even when outcome assessments were required, more than 90% of the clinicians surveyed used their own judgment and paid little heed to the data. A more recent national survey of MH service organizations serving children and families indicated that almost 75% reported collecting some standardized outcome data. 5 However, just collecting data on an annual basis will not result in improvement. MEASUREMENT IS NOT ENOUGH Feedback from clients and families naturally occurs in treatment, but it is highly filtered, biased, and subject to distortions caused by the use of cognitive heuristics and schemas. 6 This informal and flawed feedback needs to be supplemented by an MFS that uses valid, reliable, and standardized measures. This system is central to quality improvement, professional development, as well as enhancing accountability. Feedback has been successfully applied outside MH for several decades. 7,8 However the application of a fully implemented MFS is in its infancy in MH. An MFS has been shown to improve outcomes in adult MH, especially for those clients who were either not