What does Patient Change mean and how effective are we?

Owned by Tara Shubert
Last updated: Aug 13, 2020 by Siobhan Ronayne (Deactivated)
2 min read


The following is an explanation of our effect size which can be viewed on our Mental Health Dashboard in our analytics reporting.

Patient Change and Effect Size

From our Mental Health Analytics Dashboard:

Severity Adjusted Effect size is a way to quantify the effectiveness of an intervention or 'How well does it work?

  • 0.2 is a 'small' effect size  (not very effective)
  • 0.5 is a 'medium' effect size (on average effectiveness)
  • 0.8 is a 'large' effect size (extremely effective)

This is an overall treatment effectiveness score.  It is a standard measure of change that is commonly used in clinical trials and research on health outcomes.  Higher score indicate more effectiveness.  In published literature, this score typically runs about 0.5 for outpatient behavioral health treatments.


The calculation is based on Cohen's d effect size.  This is simply a measure of change expressed in standard deviation units. A score of 0.5 means the patient population has improved by half the standard deviation.  This is generally considered a moderate effect.  A 0.8 or higher is considered a large effect.


If you have any further questions about our effect size or analytics dashboard, please contact our Clinical Support team here.



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