Understanding Meaning of Responses to IAPT Measures, v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The meaning behind responses and changes in the IAPT outcome measures: seeking perspectives of IAPT service users and clinicians
IRAS ID
252131
Contact name
Joshua Buckman
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Office, UCL
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Z6364106/2019/06/09, UCL Data Protection Registration Number
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 27 days
Research summary
Routine data collection and monitoring is a main feature in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services. A range of self-reported measures of clinical symptomology are used and completed by IAPT service users on a regular basis. Data generated from these measures serve as benchmarks for service performance, and have implications on service management and commissioning. However, while results at the service-level are well understood, it is less clear what might underline individual service users’ responses to their questionnaires, how they and their clinicians make sense of changes in the scores on the self-reported measures, and whether the changes in their scores map onto their own subjective sense of wellbeing or their sense of improvement or worsening of their mood and feelings over the course of their therapy. Given the centrality of the outcome measures in IAPT services, it is important to consider individual factors that play a role in the changes in scores on the outcome measures. This study will adopt a qualitative design, with the use of surveys and interviews in a three-stage process. Stage one will consist of surveys to gather broad information on cognitive factors that play a role in the service user’s response to the questions asked in the routine outcome measures used in IAPT services. The second stage involves inviting some of the survey participants for one-to-one qualitative interviews using ‘cognitive interviewing’ techniques to explore in greater depth the factors underlying their questionnaire responses. These techniques highlight how different cognitive factors interact to give rise to the questionnaire responses, and highlight how participants make sense of changes in their own scores on the questionnaire measures. In stage three, the treating clinicians of those that participate in the one-to-one interviews will be invited to fill out a survey to offer their perspectives on the changes in the outcome measure scores of their patients. The results from this study will help clinicians and researchers to better understand what might be communicated by service users in their responses to the routine outcome measures, and whether this corresponds to the clinicians’ own view and the service users’ global sense of improvement. This understanding will also inform future service management and policy as part of a larger piece of work to consider and develop a service user led metric of change during IAPT treatment, by including the service users’ subjective view on their treatment outcomes, and on factors that contribute to their sense of improvement.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NW/0601
Date of REC Opinion
17 Oct 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion