The SCORE (Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation) is a 40‐item questionnaire for completion by family members 12 years and older to assess outcome in systemic therapy. Twenty‐eight and 15‐item short versions of the SCORE have previously been validated with samples containing some families attending adult mental health services and some attending child and adolescent services; or samples containing families exclusively from child and adolescent services. This study aimed to investigate psychometric properties of two short versions of the SCORE with a sample drawn exclusively from adult mental health services. Data were collected from 199 service users attending inpatient and outpatient adult mental health services in the south‐east of Ireland. Both instruments had good internal consistency reliability. They also showed construct and criterion validity, correlating with measures of global functioning, service need, and childhood trauma. The 28 and 15‐item versions of the SCORE are brief psychometrically robust family assessment instruments which may be used to evaluate systemic therapy with adult mental health service users. Practitioner points Brief 15 and 28‐item versions of the SCORE may be used to assess family adjustment, monitor progress and assess outcome in adult mental health cases The SCORE‐28 is in the appendix to Cahill et al. (). The SCORE‐15 and a 29‐item version that contains items for both the SCORE‐28 and SCORE‐15 is in Fay et al. () A web‐based system for administering and scoring the SCORE‐15 and SCORE‐28 is available at this link: http://scorefamilyassessment.org/login.php

Findings are discussed in relation to proposed models of self-reconstruction post-injury to the nervous system.

One-hundred-ninety-nine adult mental health service users were interviewed with a protocol that included the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Structured Clinical Interviews for Axis I and II DSM-IV disorders, the Global Assessment of Functioning scale, the SCORE family assessment measure, the Camberwell Assessment of Need Short Appraisal Schedule, and the Readiness for Psychotherapy Index. Compared to a U.S. normative sample, Irish clinical cases had higher levels of maltreatment. Cases with comorbid axis I and II disorders reported more child maltreatment than those with axis I disorders only. There was no association between types of CM and types of psychopathology. Current family adjustment and service needs (but not global functioning and motivation for psychotherapy) were correlated with a CM history. It was concluded that child maltreatment may contribute to the development of adult psychopathology, and higher levels of trauma are associated with co-morbid personality disorder, greater service needs and poorer family adjustment. A history of child maltreatment should routinely be determined when assessing adult mental health service users, especially those with personality disorders and where appropriate evidence-based psychotherapy which addresses childhood trauma should be offered.Child Maltreatment 3