Explaining Outcomes: Developing Instruments to Assess the Clinical Characteristics of Community Support Programs for People with Severe Mental Illness

Principals: Brian Rush and Ross Norman
Location: Toronto

The purpose of this research is to develop a new method of assessing important characteristics of community support programs in the province of Ontario. In this first phase of the study, the investigators are interested in finding out what the essential ingredients of community support programs are, so that they may ultimately determine how these ingredients affect the consumers of these programs. The investigators aim to:

• ask consumers, families and service providers what they consider to be the most important characteristics of community support programs, based on their own experiences with such programs, and
• use this information in the development of an assessment which will reflect issues identified by these people

The assessment that will result from this study will be an important tool for evaluating community mental health programs so that they may provide the highest quality of service.