Dear George

We gave the CISS its first run in March 99 and so far the resopnse from my staff has been positive. The counsellors on the whole found it easier to fill in, and my co-ordinator found it much easier and quicker to collate on the computer.

The spread does not fit a normal distribution, but there may be a number of reasons for this apart from teething problems. We offer long term therapy, up to 18 months, and also see family members and 'adult children of alcoholics', so some of the problems experienced by our clients may not be captured by the questionnaire. That may explain the skew or it could be a completely different factor.

We are happy with the Inventory and would like to continue to use it, we have converted our old outcome measure into a questionnaire which we will send to finishing clients which will give us a variety of outcome measures.

We are happy to continue to send you our results each month if they are helpful to you, so please let me know if you wish us to do so.

Yours sincerely, James Kitson, Counselling Service Manager. (phone 020 8667 9500)

 Links within CISS site 

CISS home page and index.

CISS form

CISS general overview. Unedited version of an explanatory article about CISS which appeared in Addiction Today Magazine (Nov/Dec, 1999)

CISS comparison scores for harm minimisation oriented methadone prescribing outpatient services

CISS comparison scores for an outpatient alcohol service (item score comparisons with drug users)  

CISS comparison scores and cutoffs for abstinence oriented services

CISS technical information (reliability, validity, correlations with other scales)  

CISS detailed information. Validation of the Christo Inventory for Substance-misuse Services (CISS): a simple outcome evaluation tool (from Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2000).

ã 1998 George Christo PhD, PsychD.