Goals Form: Reliability, validity, and clinical utility of an idiographic goal‐focused measure for routine outcome monitoring in psychotherapy

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to assess the reliability, validity, and clinical utility of an idiographic, goal-focused patient-reported outcome measure: The Goals Form. Methods: Data were analyzed from 88 participants, across three samples, who had participated in collaborativeintegrative psychotherapy at university-based clinics in the UK. The samples were approximately 70% female with mean age of 30 years old. Results: The psychometric properties of the Goals Form were generally good. Noncompletion of individual items was low, temporal stability tended to be at target levels, and mean change scores showed moderate to good convergent validity against measures of psychological distress. The measure appeared sensitive to change in psychotherapy and was experienced by most patients as helpful. Conclusions: The Goals Form shows acceptable psychometric and clinical properties for routine outcome monitoring in psychotherapy.

Idiographic patient reported outcome measures (I‐PROMs) for routine outcome monitoring in psychological therapies: Position paper

“…The third type comprises brief rating forms that have a relatively simple goal setting process for use with children and young people, and just one dimension for rating goal progress: the Goal Based Outcomes (GBO) tool and the Goals Form (Cooper & Xu, 2021). These latter forms have been developed for informing clinical practice, but also specifically for use in ROM.…”

“…Like the first type, this has a relatively in‐depth goal setting process but, uniquely, invites patients to consider and set their own expected levels of outcomes. The third type comprises brief rating forms that have a relatively simple goal setting process for use with children and young people, and just one dimension for rating goal progress: the Goal Based Outcomes (GBO) tool (Law & Jacob, 2015) and the Goals Form (Cooper & Xu, 2021). These latter forms have been developed for informing clinical practice, but also specifically for use in ROM.…”

“…Some I‐PROMs allow for modifications. For instance, the Goals Form (Cooper & Xu, 2021) and the PQ (Elliott et al, 2016) have procedures for deleting, and adding, goals or problems. PSYCHLOPS also allows adding a new problem in the session‐to‐session form (Czachowski et al, 2011).…”

Enhancing mental health and well‐being outcomes for psychotherapy and counselling through idiographic analysis: A four‐quadrant approach

“…I‐PROMs are tools with free‐text items generated by the individual client (generally in collaboration with the practitioner), based on the areas of assessment and change they would like to focus on. They are problem‐focussed (e.g., Simplified Personal Questionnaire [PQ], Elliott et al, 2016); Psychological Outcome Profiles [PSYCHLOPS], Ashworth et al, 2005); or goal‐focussed (e.g., Goals Form, Cooper & Xu, 2021; GBO tool, Law, 2011). I‐PROMs are scored on rating scales depending on the intensity of the problem or progress towards the goal over time.…”

Special section: Idiographic tools for routine outcome monitoring in psychotherapy

“…In our second paper, C. Sales et al (2023) develop evidence on the psychometric properties of the PSYCHLOPS, one of the most widely used I‐PROM, including analysis with item response theory. Cooper and Xu (2023) present the first comprehensive analysis of the psychometric properties of the Goals Form: a goal‐oriented I‐PROM designed specifically for use in ROM. Cox and Klinger (2023) review the psychometric and clinical evidence for their Motivational Structure Questionnaire family of idiographic assessment tools, and consider how these can be applied to ROM.…”