What is the CORE System?
CORE stands for Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation.
The CORE System includes tools, thinking and CORE measures to support monitoring of change and outcomes in routine practice for psychological distress, counselling, and any other work that promotes mental health, well-being, and psychological recovery.
The CORE System Trust (CST) owns the copyright on all of the instruments and manages the full system, including any developments and distribution of the tools.
The trust aims to protect the copyright and while also encouraging and supporting the development and use of the system.
This article summarises:
- what the CORE System is
- what forms are available in the system
- how the forms can be used
- how they can be accessed
If you are already use a practice management system, you’ll know that the CORE forms are available for you to use as templates.
What forms are available in the CORE System?
The main and original CORE system form is the CORE-OM (Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure) which covers four main domains:
- wellbeing
- problems
- functioning
- risk
It can be completed before and after therapy, to enable evaluation of change in psychological distress. The CORE-OM has 34 items, all with the same five level response choice and the time frame is the last seven days.
There are also a number of related forms available in the system, referred to as instruments:
- CORE-SF/A – first quasi-parallel 18 item form
- CORE-SF/B – second short form
- CORE 10 – more recent short form for screening and review
- CORE 5 – ultra short form for tracking recovery and improvement
- GP-CORE – short form for general population survey work
- YP-CORE – short form adapted for young people aged 13-17
- LD-CORE – forms drawing on the CORE-OM design co-developed with people with learning disabilities
- CORE-A Therapy Assessment Form (TAF) – practitioner completed form giving crucial initial context to the change measurement
- CORE-A End of Therapy (EoT) – form completed at the end of therapy describing the treatment
All carry appropriate psychometric properties, and are practical to use with people presenting with common mental health problems in primary care settings.
The CORE Measures
The CORE system is used by practitioners to measure and evaluate the mental health and wellbeing of their clients using the specific CORE measures.
The aim is for practitioners to be able to calculate a score from the outcome forms, allowing data to be standardised and evaluated.
It’s important to note that the copyright of the CORE system is owned by the CORE System Trust. This is to maintain the integrity of the system, and to avoid the forms being reproduced and changed in any way.
Most good practice management systems include a subset of the CORE forms. In our case, with the Core System Trust’s agreement, we include the CORE-OM, CORE-10 and YP-CORE forms in our assessment store as these are the most frequently requested. If you would like others to be considered for inclusion please get in touch with us on Live Chat.
Got any questions?
We’ve collaborated with the CORE System Trust to include their forms in WriteUpp.