Evaluation

Partnering With Families Affected by Concurrent Disorders - Facilitators' Guide

In Evaluation:

Family response to the program and program materials
Measuring outcomes

Measuring Outcomes

The primary goal of family education and support programs is to increase the well-being of the family members who participate in the group. The outcomes to be evaluated should be related directly to this goal. The goals should be realistic. For example, the goal of a one- or two-session workshop may be an increase in knowledge about mental illness and substance use, while a program of 10 or more sessions can aim to increase coping skills as well (Solomon, 1996). If you decide to measure the impact, make sure you are aware of your agency’s policies concerning collecting and retaining data about human subjects.

After an extensive review of a broad array of articles and books related to families, mental illness and substance use problems, as well as successful—and not so successful—interventions designed to improve family well-being and consumer outcome, we decided to evaluate the following areas for our study (see Appendix 2 for details):

empowerment (personal mastery and self-efficacy)
coping
social support
caregiver burden
perception of stigma (“stigma by association”)
degree of hopelessness
satisfaction with life / quality of life.

In future studies, we plan to add a measure of the overall health of caregivers and/or family members.

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Partnering With Families Affected by Concurrent Disorders - Facilitators' Guide

Evaluation

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