Focus: The Use of Rating Scales to Track Therapeutic Progress: Overview of Rating Scales in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinical Practice.

The article discusses the use of rating scales in child and adolescent psychiatry clinical practice. The use the right rating scale in the practice can reportedly help bypass visit-to-visit variability in information ascertainment inherent in unstructured interview. Rating scales, the author notes, may help streamline the clinical evaluation process of patients when used correctly. The scores from the rating scales can be compared from baseline to multiple time points throughout treatment to monitor the effectiveness of treatment.