PSYCHLOPS is a short one page mental health outcome measure and can be used during the course of any psychotherapeutic intervention.

A copy of the PSYCHLOPS scoring system is available: 

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PSYCHLOPS promotes a patient-centred definition of therapy outcome. It is patient-generated and can be self-completed.

PSYCHLOPS has questions on Problems, Function and Wellbeing. Patients are asked to describe their main Problem or Problems and how this affects them (Function). Responses to all questions are scored.

PSYCHLOPS may be used as a means of setting a focus for therapy from the outset.

PSYCHLOPS is not intended as a diagnostic instrument; it is a highly sensitive measure of change during the course of psychotherapeutic interventions.

PSYCHLOPS captures data before, during and after a course of therapy. Change can be measured throughout the process of therapy, whether or not therapy is completed.

PSYCHLOPS has been approved by the Plain English Campaign and carries the 'Crystal Mark'. 

Background

PSYCHLOPS has been developed by a group of primary care professionals and therapists based at the School of Life Course and Population Sciences, King's College London.

The development of PSYCHLOPS  was strongly influenced by Depression Alliance who provided a user perspective. Its roots lie in MYMOP which is a patient-generated outcome measure focussing primarily on physical problems.

PSYCHLOPS has been in development since 1999. Following validation studies, it was launched in 2004. Initially designed as a before and after measure, a new during-therapy version was launched in 2007.

The latest version, PSYCHLOPS Version 5, was launched in 2010. The intention is that Version 5 should be the definitive version for several years to ensure a period of stability.

The PSYCHLOPS Team: Prof Mark Ashworth, Dr Maria Kordowicz, Dr Peter Schofield, Dr Salma Ayis

Psychometric properties

The most distinctive feature of PSYCHLOPS is that it is highly sensitive to change. PSYCHLOPS elicits psychometric information covering three domains: Problems, Function and Wellbeing.

  • Responsiveness to change is measured using the Effect Size
  • UK based validation studies using PSYCHLOPS have found Effect Sizes of 1.53 and 1.61 (Effect Sizes >0.80 are generally considered large for health service related outcomes)
  • Captures improvement, or otherwise, during and after the course of therapy.
  • Test-retest reliability: intra-class correlation coefficient, 0.70
  • Internal reliability: alpha scores, 0.75 pre-therapy and 0.83 post-therapy
  • Convergent validity: Spearman’s rho, 0.61 (comparison with CORE-OM); Spearman’s rho, 0.47 (comparison with HADS)
  • Concurrent validity: t = -6.30; P<0.001; comparison of scores of patient self-report ‘much better’ compared with ‘a little better’
  • Freetext responses: may contribute usefully to the process of therapy and provide rich source of material for qualitative analysis.

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