Evaluating mental health outcomes in an inpatient setting: convergent and divergent validity of the OQ-45 and BASIS-32

The evolution of managed behavioral health care has led to an increased emphasis on reliable and valid assessment of outcomes in clinical practice. The present study evaluated the convergent, divergent, and concurrent validity and sensitivity to change of two widely used measures: Behavior and Symptom Identification Scale (BASIS-32) and Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45). Comparisons of the two measures revealed that both were sensitive to change over a relatively short inpatient stay. Both measures also showed evidence of convergent and divergent validity of specific subscales, although the total scores of each measure also were highly correlated. Evidence of concurrent validity was suggested by differences between diagnostic groups on specific subscale scores. Together with previous research, these results suggest that the BASIS-32 and OQ-45 can be useful measures for tracking patient functioning over a range of treatment contexts.