Common measures in mental health: a joint initiative by funders and journals.

Abstract

There is notable heterogeneity in how clinical and phenotypic data are measured by mental health researchers. There is a proliferation of self-report measures (eg, over 280 for depression alone), meaning it is challenging for researchers to compare findings across different studies from different laboratories. To begin to address this issue, a consortium of mental health research funders and journals has launched the Common Measures in Mental Health Science Initiative. The purpose of this endeavour is to identify common measures for mental health conditions that funders and journals can require all researchers to collect, in addition to any other measures they require for their specific study. These measures would not necessarily capture the full range of experiences of a given condition but could be used to link and compare across studies with different designs in different contexts. This Health Policy outlines the rationale, objectives, and potential challenges of this initiative, which aims to enhance the rigour and comparability of mental health research by promoting the adoption of standardised measures.