A review of Australian mental health services identified a gap in routine outcome measures addressing social, emotional and behavioural domains for pre-schoolers and infants. A Child and Adolescent Mental Health Information Development Expert Advisory Panel working group developed the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Infants (HoNOSI), a clinician-reported routine outcome measure for infants 0–47 months. Prior face validity testing showed that the HoNOSI was considered useful in measuring mental health outcomes.

To examine the concurrent validity of the HoNOSI.

Mental health clinicians providing assessment and treatment to infants in routine clinical practice participated in the study. The mental health status of 108 infants were rated by a minimum of 26 clinicians with the HoNOSI, the Parent-Infant Relationship Global Assessment Scale (PIR-GAS) and measures of symptom severity and distress.

The HoNOSI was statistically significantly correlated with the PIR–;GAS, rs = −0.73; Clinical Worry, rs = 0.77; and Severity Judgement ratings, rs = 0.85; P < 0.001. A good level of internal consistency was found. Using the COsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) criteria for judging instrument acceptability, the HoNOSI meets the standard for both concurrent validity and internal consistency.

There has been a clear need for a routine outcome measure for use with infants. This study provides positive evidence of aspects of validity. These findings, along with those from the prior face validity study, support a controlled release of the HoNOSI accompanied by further research and development.

A review of Australian mental health services identified a gap in routine outcome measures addressing social, emotional and behavioural domains for pre-schoolers and infants. The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Information Development Expert Advisory Panel Working Group developed the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Infants (HoNOSI), a clinician-reported routine outcome measure for use with those aged under 4 years. Prior psychometric testing showed that the HoNOSI was considered to show face validity, and that it met the standards for concurrent validity and internal consistency.

We aimed to investigate the interrater reliability of the HoNOSI.

Forty-five infant mental health clinicians completed HoNOSI ratings on a set of five case vignettes.

Quadratic weighted kappa interrater reliability estimates showed the HoNOSI to have Almost Perfect interrater reliability for the HoNOSI total score. Of the 15 scales, one had Moderate, seven had Substantial and seven had Almost Perfect interrater reliability. Ten of the fifteen scales and the total score exceeded the COnsensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement INstruments criteria for interrater reliability (κw ≥ 0.7).

There has been a clear need for a routine outcome measure for use with infants and pre-schoolers. This study provides evidence of interrater reliability. The current findings, combined with the face and concurrent validity studies, support further examination of HoNOSI in real-world settings.

The Health of the Nation Outcomes Scales (HoNOS) has been widely used as an outcome measure in UK mental health settings for the past decade. The data-set gathered provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the totality of mental healthcare in ‘real-world’ conditions; much of our clinical evidence currently comes from highly parameterised clinical trials investigating single interventions in highly selected patients.

To examine all outcomes measured by HoNOS for a range of diagnostic groups, evaluate the influence of patient demographics on those outcomes, and observe changes in patient groups over time.

Here we show the data from 6813 adult patients treated in Cambridgeshire between 2012 and 2017. Patients were split into three diagnostic groups: psychosis, non-psychosis and organic. Changes in HoNOS scores from initial assessment to discharge were tested and regressions were used to evaluate the influence of age, gender and ethnicity on the changes, as well as to model changes in the severity of initial presenting symptoms with time.

HoNOS scores significantly improve after treatment for psychotic, non-psychotic and organic conditions in adults and older adults. Age, but not gender or ethnicity, influenced change in HoNOS scores. Patients entering secondary mental health services had increased initial HoNOS scores over time.

The UK repository of HoNOS scores provides a significant and relatively underutilised resource that can be exploited to gain insights into mental illness and treatment effectiveness. This is likely to have many applications, including influencing the commissioning of services.

Although the science of team science is no longer a new field, the measurement of team science and its standardization remain in relatively early stages of development. To describe the current state of team science assessment, we conducted an integrative review of measures of research collaboration quality and outcomes.

Collaboration measures were identified using both a literature review based on specific keywords and an environmental scan. Raters abstracted details about the measures using a standard tool. Measures related to collaborations with clinical care, education, and program delivery were excluded from this review.

We identified 44 measures of research collaboration quality, which included 35 measures with reliability and some form of statistical validity reported. Most scales focused on group dynamics. We identified 89 measures of research collaboration outcomes; 16 had reliability and 15 had a validity statistic. Outcome measures often only included simple counts of products; publications rarely defined how counts were delimited, obtained, or assessed for reliability. Most measures were tested in only one venue.

Although models of collaboration have been developed, in general, strong, reliable, and valid measurements of such collaborations have not been conducted or accepted into practice. This limitation makes it difficult to compare the characteristics and impacts of research teams across studies or to identify the most important areas for intervention. To advance the science of team science, we provide recommendations regarding the development and psychometric testing of measures of collaboration quality and outcomes that can be replicated and broadly applied across studies.

Music in Dementia Assessment Scales (MiDAS), an observational outcome measure for music therapy with people with moderate to severe dementia, was developed from qualitative data of focus groups and interviews. Expert and peer consultations were conducted at each stage of the scale development to maximize its content validity. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of MiDAS.

Care home residents with dementia attended weekly group music therapy for up to ten sessions. Music therapists and care home staff were requested to complete weekly MiDAS ratings. The Quality of Life Scale (QoL-AD) was completed at three time-points.

A total of 629 (staff = 306, therapist = 323) MiDAS forms were completed. The statistical analysis revealed that MiDAS has high therapist inter-rater reliability, low staff inter-rater reliability, adequate staff test-retest reliability, adequate concurrent validity, and good construct validity. High factor loadings between the five MiDAS Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) items, levels of Interest, Response, Initiation, Involvement, and Enjoyment, were found.

This study indicates that MiDAS has good psychometric properties despite the small sample size. Future research with a larger sample size could provide a more in-depth psychometric evaluation, including further exploration of the underlying factors. MiDAS provides a measure of engagement with musical experience and offers insight into who is likely to benefit on other outcomes such as quality of life or reduction in psychiatric symptoms.

Raising understanding of dementia has become a key focus of international health and social care. An up-to-date, psychometrically sound measure of dementia knowledge that embraces a biopsychosocial perspective is lacking. The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the DK-20, a dementia knowledge questionnaire aimed at unqualified care staff.

Domain and item generation followed recommended measure development procedures. A pilot and large-scale study evaluated the psychometric properties of the measure on a sample of 211 care staff and other dementia professionals.

The final 20-item measure encompasses items based on biopsychosocial dementia knowledge and care-specific knowledge. Acceptable test-retest reliability, marginal levels of internal consistency, and evidence for face, content, and construct validity were demonstrated.

The DK-20 is the first knowledge of dementia measure to be developed specifically for unqualified care staff and has reasonable psychometric properties. It may be used to identify gaps in knowledge, highlighting areas for inclusion in educational interventions.

Self-efficacy is an important outcome measure of self-management interventions. We aimed to establish UK validity and reliability of the diabetes management self-efficacy scale (DMSES).

The 20 item DMSES was available for Dutch and US populations. Consultation with people with type 2 diabetes and health professionals established UK content and face validity resulting in item reduction to 15. Participants were adults with type 2 diabetes enrolled in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of the diabetes manual, a self-management education intervention, with an HbA1c over 7% and who understood English. Baseline trial data and follow-up control group data were used.

A total of 175 participants completed all 15 items. Pearson’s correlation coefficient of −0.46 (P < 0.0001) between the DMSES UK and the problem areas in diabetes scale demonstrated criterion validity. Intra-class correlation between data from 67 of these participants was 0.77, demonstrating test-retest reliability. The correlation coefficients between item scores and total scores were >0.30. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.89 over all items.

This evaluation demonstrates that the scale has good internal reliability, internal consistency, construct validity, criterion validity, and test-retest reliability.

The 15 item DMSES UK is suitable for use in research and clinical settings to measure the self-efficacy of people living with type 2 diabetes in managing their diabetes.