SACA/Service-Use Assessments
Fast
Track obtained permission to use this measure in our study, but
we are not allowed to distribute it. To obtain a copy for your use,
click
here and contact the source listed.
Abstract
The SACA (Stiffman et al., 2000) was used by Fast Track
to collect parents' reports of their children's mental health service-use
history. The instrument asks a maximum of 331 questions on service
use by their child (plus 10 introductory demographic questions).
The initial 24 of the 331 are 'gate-level' questions which ask the
parent about the child's lifetime use covering 23 different categories
of inpatient and outpatient service use. If the parent indicates
that their child had never received any services in the presented
categories, they would only be asked these initial 24 questions.
A positive response on lifetime service-use for a particular category
(e.g., psychiatric hospital) would lead to a separate section that
asked more in-depth questions about service use in the past 12 months
for that category, including when child first received services,
name and address of most recent service provider, total number of
days served, child's reaction to service, who referred child to
service and how the service was paid for.
No scales were derived for this instrument.
Analysts can examine group differences in degree and pattern of
mental health service use as well as examine the relationship between
characteristics of service use with predictors from other instruments.
Reported use of services is somewhat limited in early years of the
SACA, especially in more specialized service categories. Analysts
should note the degree of response for services before generating
descriptive statistics or using outcomes in statistical models.
In general, most distributions will be 'zero-modal' so examination
of distribution characteristics is highly advised. There are also
several logistical problems with the original SACA data at the time
of this technical report. First, variables are inconsistent as to
their numeric/character status. Subjects' data for service use in
the past 12-months is set to missing if that subject had indicated
they had never received that service; thus, 12-month data has misleadingly
high rates of missing data, even though those subjects truly did
not receive services in the past 12-months. These missing values
(for subjects who indeed did receive the SACA) should be set to
zero in order to obtain accurate 12-month rates of service use.
Keywords: Mental Health Services, Inpatient, Outpatient, Special
Education, In-School Services, Hospitalization, Residential Treatment
Center, Group Home, Foster Care, Emergency Shelter, Counselor, Therapist,
Physician, Health Insurance, Referrals, Incarceration, Juvenile
Facility, Jail, Illegal Activities, Arrest, Police Contact.
Administration History
See study
years administered.
Back to Fast Track home
Back to instrument
list
24 May 2004
|
