Evaluation of the CORE outcome measure in a therapeutic forensic setting

This study seeks to establish whether the published test characteristics of the CORE (Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Measure) outcome measure can be reproduced in a therapeutic forensic setting. The measure has been designed to address the needs of psychological therapy services for clinical, audit and management feedback regardless of the clinical setting, mode of therapy, or specific problems (clinical population) of the patients (CORE System Group, 1998). Data was collected on 53 men and compared with the normative data for clinical and non‐clinical samples published in the CORE manual.The findings show that:• the inmate sample means fall between those of the clinical and non‐clinical samples• the internal consistency of the measure was found to be generally as good as that claimed by the authors of the test• the test/retest stability figures were lower in the inmate sample• age effects were generally the same as those quoted in the manual• the refusal rate and incidence of missing items indicate that the test had good acceptability by the forensic group.It is concluded that CORE is a useful tool in a therapeutic forensic setting.