A Methodology for Preparing ‘Ideal’ Treatment Outlines in Psychiatry: The Quality Assurance Project *

Abstract

The methodology of preparing treatment process criteria for agoraphobia and the depressive disorders is described. To avoid bias three sources of information were used: the results of a meta-analysis of the treatment outcome literature, the views of a sample of practising psychiatrists, and the views of a small representative expert committee. When criteria for schizophrenia and the neuroses have been completed the quality assurance project should serve two main purposes: first as an aid to continuing and postgraduate education and second as a basis for clinical review criteria required by peer review and other quality assurance activities.