AUTHOR=De Ossorno Garcia Santiago , Edbrooke-Childs Julian , Salhi Louisa , Ruby Florence J. M. , Sefi Aaron , Jacob Jenna 

TITLE=Examining concurrent validity and item selection of the Session Wants and Needs Outcome Measure (SWAN-OM) in a children and young people web-based therapy service

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1067378

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1067378

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Background</title><p>Single-session mental health interventions are frequently attended by children and young people (CYP) in both web-based and face-to-face therapy settings. The Session “Wants” and “Needs” Outcome Measure (SWAN-OM) is an instrument developed in a web-based therapy service to overcome the challenges of collecting outcomes and experiences of single-session therapies (SSTs). It provides pre-defined goals for the session, selected by the young person prior to the intervention, on which progress toward achievement is scored at the end of the session.</p></sec><sec><title>Objective</title><p>The objective of this study was to evaluate the instrument's psychometric properties, including concurrent validity against three other frequently used outcome and experience measures, at a web-based and text-based mental health service.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>The SWAN-OM was administered for a period of 6 months to 1,401 CYP (aged 10–32 years; 79.3% white; 77.59% female) accessing SST on a web-based service. Item correlations with comparator measures and hierarchical logistic regressions to predict item selection were calculated for concurrent validity and psychometric exploration.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>The most frequently selected items were “<italic>Feel better</italic>” (<italic>N</italic> = 431; 11.61%) and “<italic>Find ways I can help myself</italic>” (<italic>N</italic> = 411; 11.07%); unpopular items were “<italic>Feel safe in my relationships</italic>” (<italic>N</italic> = 53; 1.43%) and “<italic>Learn the steps to achieve something I want</italic>” (<italic>N</italic> = 58; 1.56%). The SWAN-OM was significantly correlated with the Experience of Service Questionnaire, particularly the item “<italic>Feel better</italic>” [rs<sub>(109)</sub> = 0.48, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001], the Youth Counseling Impact Scale, particularly the item “<italic>Learn the steps to achieve something I want</italic>” [rs<sub>(22)</sub> = 0.76, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001], and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, particularly the items “<italic>Learn how to feel better</italic>” [rs<sub>(22)</sub> = 0.72, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001] and “<italic>Explore how I feel</italic>” [rs<sub>(70)</sub> = −0.44, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001].</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>The SWAN-OM demonstrates good concurrent validity with common measures of outcome and experience. Analysis suggests that lesser-endorsed items may be removed in future iterations of the measure to improve functionality. Future research is required to explore SWAN-OM's potential to measure meaningful change in a range of therapeutic settings.</p></sec>