Summary
background Staging and profiling can make a valuable contribution to more effective and tailor-made treatments. In psychiatry these techniques have so far played only a very limited role. Routine outcome monitoring (rom) may be able to alter the situation.
aim To describe the criteria of a rom-system that is ideal for staging and profiling and to find out to what extent some existing rom-systems satisfy these criteria.
method The method used was to investigate to what extent the minimal dataset of the Stichting Benchmark ggz and the rom of the Leiden Routine Outcome Monitoring Study meet the criteria formulated in this article for an ideal rom and provide a ‘proof of principle’.
results The minimal dataset of the Stichting Benchmark ggz satisfies fewer criteria than the rom of the Leiden Routine Outcome Monitoring Study, but neither fulfils all the criteria. Nevertheless, even without adequate datasets the Leiden Routine Outcome Monitoring Study can make a useful contribution to the staging of depression and mental health in general and to the profiling of depression.
conclusion ROM is an important instrument for the development of staging and profiling in psychiatry.