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Evaluating mental health care reform: Including the clinician, client, and family perspective

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Abstract

This article suggests one direction that theory building might take to develop a stronger conceptual foundation needed to test the effect on clients of reforms in the financing and organization of mental health care delivery systems. The authors recommend that health status outcomes be measured from three perspectives: the client, who can best report his or her own subjective experience of illness; the clinician, who is the best source of information about the client’s disease; and the family, which is the best source of information about the effects on members’ health status of caring for a mentally ill family member. The authors also recommend that measurement of health status should be multidimensional.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health Services Research, McLean Hospital, 115 Mill St., 02178, Belmont, MA

    Barbara Dickey Ph.D. (Director)

  2. Department of Public Administration at the University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherland

    Hendrik Wagenaar Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Barbara Dickey Ph.D.
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  2. Hendrik Wagenaar Ph.D.
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Additional information

The work on which this article is based was supported by the Commonwealth Research Center at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Massachusetts Department of Mental Health.

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Dickey, B., Wagenaar, H. Evaluating mental health care reform: Including the clinician, client, and family perspective. The Journal of Mental Health Administration 21, 313–319 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02521337

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