Study of the validity and reliability of the Outcome Measurement Questionnaire (OMQ) and Session Measurement Questionnaire (SMQ)

Optimizing Treatment Outcomes Through Regularly Measuring Client-Feedback

Jun 2021 – Nov 2021

The validity and reliability of the Outcome Measurement Questionnaire (OMQ) and Session Measurement Questionnaire (SMQ)

Background

Within NiceDay Way treatments clients fill in two very short questionnaires around each call session with their therapist through the NiceDay app. The Outcome Measurement Questionnaire (OMQ) is taken prior to each session to measure self-rated client-functioning in five life domains including mental health, physical health, social relationships, participation and meaning/purpose. The Session Measurement Questionnaire (SMQ) is taken after each call session to measure the quality of the working alliance between the therapist and client experienced during the previous call session. The working alliance refers to the therapists and clients collaborative relationship and is an important factor in achieving positive treatment outcomes. Moreover, regular administration of the OMQ and SMQ allows therapists to gain insight into whether the client is progressing and whether there are weak points in the working alliance. This feedback can then be directly applied in the further course of the therapy.

Objective

The OMQ and SMQ have not been validated themselves yet but are based on the validated Outcome Rating Scale (ORS) and Session Rating Scale (SRS) that originate from the Client-Directed Outcome Informed (CDOI) method developed by Scott Miller, Barry Duncan and Mark Hubble. In the CDOI method the ORS and SRS are used similarly to the OMQ and SMQ, except that they are applied on paper rather than digitally and that they slightly differ in their content. The first objective of this research is therefore to investigate the influences of these differences on the reliability and validity of the OMQ and SMQ. The other objectives of this study relate to the fact that the OMQ and SMQ are currently only used as feedback tools. Clients fill in more extensive Routine Outcome Measurement (ROM) questionnaires for diagnostic purposes and to measure outcomes which may be time consuming and redundant. Hence, the second and third objective focus on determining whether the OMQ and SMQ can replace other ROM tools and whether the OMQ can be used as a reliable (pre-)diagnostic tool.

Results

This study is still ongoing and several subtopics still have to be addressed to satisfy all objectives.  However, current results support the reliability and validity of the OMQ and SMQ in measuring client-functioning and the working alliance respectively. In addition, the characteristics of the OMQ and SMQ are relatively similar to those of the previously validated ORS and SRS. Moreover, higher SMQ scores indicating a stronger working alliance are indeed a positive predictor of client progression.