NOCC Reporting Criteria

An important issue in the analysis and reporting of the NOCC measures is to determine when a measure is ‘valid’ with respect to the clinical ratings provided.

Outcome measures such as the HoNOS family are referred to here as measures (elsewhere, these have been variously referred to as scales, instruments). Some measures comprise multiple components, such as items (these have been variously referred to as scales). Items can be aggregated into subscales and total scores (these have been variously referred to as summary and total scores). Ratings of items can be described in terms of three mutually exclusive categories:

  1. valid ‘clinical’ ratings that typically indicate levels of problem severity;
  2. valid ‘non-clinical’ ratings that typically indicate reasons why problem severity was not rated; and
  3. invalid values such as ‘nulls’ or values outside of the range for 1 and 2 above.

The validity of a measure is derived from consideration of the validity of the items that comprises that measure. Valid scores can be estimated either when all of the items are clinically valid OR when a sufficient number of items are clinically valid. Two issues to consider are:

  1. How many items need to have a valid clinical rating in order for the overall measure to be considered valid?
  2. If one or more of the items does not have a valid clinical rating, how does this impact on the scoring of subscale and total scores?

The following table shows the criteria used to determine whether a NOCC measure had been validly completed for the purposes of subsequent statistical reporting:

Completion criteria for each of the NOCC measures

NOCC MeasureAge GroupCompletion Criteria
HoNOSCAC&AAt least 11 of the first 13 HoNOSCA items have Valid Clinical Ratings
CGASC&AAny Valid Clinical Rating
FIHSC&AAt least 6 of the 7 FIHS items have Valid Clinical Ratings
SDQ - all versionsC&AAt least 3 of the 5 items in all of the first 4 subscales (i.e. excluding the Prosocial subscale) derived from the first 25 items have Valid Clinical Ratings
AgeC&AAged between 1 day and 24 years inclusive
HoNOS / 65+A&OPAt least 10 items have Valid Clinical Ratings
LSP-16A&OPAt least 14 items have Valid Clinical Ratings
BASIS-32A&OPAt least 27 items have Valid Clinical Ratings***
K10+A&OPAt least 9 items of the 10 K10 items have Valid Clinical Ratings
MHI-38A&OPAt least 30 items have Valid Clinical Ratings
AgeAAged between 15 and 124 years inclusive
RUG-ADLOPAll 4 items have Valid Clinical Ratings
AgeOPAged between 55 and 124 years inclusive
PoCAllAny Valid Clinical Rating
Principal DiagnosisAllAny Valid Mental Health Diagnosis Summary Group
MHLSAllEither Voluntary or Involuntary Status recorded
SexAllEither Male, Female or Intersex or indeterminate Sex recorded
Explanatory Notes: 
***BASIS-32 items 2, 3 & 4 only count as one item
C&AChild & Adolescent Collection Age Group
A&OPAdult AND Older Person Collection Age Group
AAdult Collection Age Group
OPOlder Person Collection Age Group