The need for research that is designed to support decisions in the delivery of mental health services

M. E. P. Seligman (1995) argued that traditional approaches to mental health services research fail to provide useful information to consumers and practitioners, particularly in an environment increasingly dominated by managed care. The authors recommend 4 guidelines for designing a research program so that the results can support the decisions of the major stakeholders (clients-families, practitioners, service managers, and policymakers): (a) Research must be targeted and programmatic and encompass a strategy of complementary efficacy, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness studies, (b) study design and measure selection must be sensitive to describe who, and in what context, is best served by which intervention; (c) the design must inform stakeholders as to the type and amount of effort that is required to achieve a behavioral criteria, and (d) the strategy should inform researchers how information should be formatted to best support the decisions of the key stakeholders.