The British Journal of Psychiatry 145: 517-525 (1984)
© 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
The measurement of psychiatric rehabilitation status. A review of the needs and a new scale
JW Affleck and RJ McGuire
The recognition of rehabilitation as a special interest in psychiatry, and
its practice by professional teams, raises the need for some uniformity in
examining patient outcome. The features required in a scale designed for
this purpose are considered and the Morningside Rehabilitation Status
Scales, which have been prepared specifically for psychiatric
rehabilitation, have their development and use described. They measure the
dimensions of dependency, inactivity in occupation and leisure, social
integration/isolation, and current symptoms and deviant behaviour. The
measures can be expressed as a profile of the dimensions, with the total a
measure of overall level of functioning; reliability has been established,
and validity assessed. The scales are not difficult to apply when the
patients are known to the staff using them. They should be useful to
rehabilitation teams for defining the current status of patients, measuring
changes produced by rehabilitation programmes, deciding areas where
treatment or service deficits may exist which the team should be attempting
to remedy, as well as for teaching purposes.