Measuring what matters: Clinical Outcome assessments in mental health care

16th May 2025

Oxford University Innovation’s Clinical Outcomes team offers validated tools to assess mental health across diverse populations - from individuals with depression and children with anxiety, to those in forensic psychiatric care. These tools support informed interventions, improve service delivery, and better health outcomes.

Gaining a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of individuals with mental health conditions is essential to delivering compassionate, effective care. By capturing how mental health challenges impact daily functioning, emotional wellbeing, and social participation, clinicians and researchers can tailor interventions, enhance therapeutic relationships, and design services that truly reflect the needs of those they support.

The Clinical Outcomes team at Oxford University Innovation (OUI) offers a suite of validated Clinical Outcome Assessments (COAs) designed to capture what matters to the people experiencing these conditions.

• Recovering Quality of Life (ReQoL) Questionnaire: The ReQoL measures assess the quality of life for people with different mental health conditions. They are generic and applicable across all mental health populations, including those with common mental health problems, severe and complex needs, and psychotic disorders Available in two versions, a brief 10-item measure, and a 20-item measure, they are suitable for mental health populations aged 16 and over in primary, secondary, and tertiary care.
• The Recovering Quality of Life – Utility Index (ReQoL-UI) is a recovery-focused generic preference-based data analysis tool for extracting valuable health economics data from the existing Recovering Quality of Life (ReQoL) Patient Reported Outcome Measure to enable the generation of QALYs for use in cost-utility analysis of mental health interventions.
• The Oxford Depression Questionnaire (ODQ): The ODQ is a 26-item patient-centred, self-report measure of emotional symptoms present in patients treated with antidepressants. Questions are constructed over 3 sections and cover 4 dimensions (derived from qualitative research) of; not caring, emotional detachment, positive reduction and general reduction.
• The Forensic Outcome Measure (FORUM) is designed to help safeguard patients and the public, monitor progress, inform treatment plans and assist in service evaluation and planning. Containing two separate, but linked questionnaires: a Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM), and a Clinician Reported Outcome Measure (ClinRO), the outcome framework consists of six overarching domains.
• Mathematics Attitudes and Anxiety Questionnaire (MAAQ) is an Interviewer administered questionnaire that uses age-appropriate, simple to understand, pictorial rating scales to capture the student / child’s personal views to gain insights into their anxiety toward mathematics.

By using these validated tools in practice, clinicians and researchers can better align care with patients’ real experiences, while also gathering evidence to support service improvement and inform decision-making in mental health care.

If you have any questions related to these COAs or would like to find out more about how you can obtain a licence to use the tools, you can visit the assessment pages via their retrospective links above or contact the Clinical Outcomes team via healthoutcomes@innovation.ox.ac.uk.

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