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The government's Children and Young People’s Mental Health Taskforce has suggested extending Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to young people up to 25 years of age (DH, 2015b). Extended CAMHS services will require outcome measures suitable for the 16-25 year old population that are able to reliably measure change in older adolescents and younger adults. It is important therefore to establish the face validity of ReQol with the 16+ CAMHS population.
Sixty-one potential items for the ReQoL outcome measure were presented to seventeen Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) users, using either interview or quasi-focus group methods. Content analysis was used to help make decisions on which items to include in the next stages of the measure development.
Young people aged 16-18 have also been included in subsequent stages of the instrument development and a pilot focus group has taken place with CAMHS clinicians to understand issues of clinical appeal and utility. Further focus groups are being planned.