A comparative study on assessment procedures and metric properties of two scoring systems of the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised items: standard and modified scores.

Objective: The study compared the metric characteristics (discriminant capacity and factorial structure) of two different methods for scoring the items of the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised and it analysed scale scores collected using the standard assessment procedure and a new proposed method.

Design: Cross sectional design/methodological study.

Setting: Inpatient, neurological unit.

Does community care work? A model to evaluate the effectiveness of mental health services.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of community Mental Health Departments in Lombardy (Italy), and analyse the eventual differences in outcome produced by different packages of care. The survey was conducted in 2000 on 4,712 patients treated in ten Mental Health Departments. Patients were assessed at least twice in a year with HoNOS (Health of the Nation Outcome Scales).