| Abstract
| - Now more than ever there exists an urgent need to develop and test conceptually grounded, theoretically differentiated measures of mental health services because of the rapid adoption of managed mental health care throughout the United States. This article presents the results of testing a new research instrument, the Inpatient Measure of Adolescent and Child Services and Treatment (I-MACST). The instrument assesses eight psychosocial mental health service strategies for psychiatrically hospitalized children and adolescents and provides an understanding of the therapeutic and case management service orientations of inpatient facilities. Data collected from three hospitals, one of them at two time points, demonstrate reliability for the eight scales. In addition, results show that the I-MACST differentiates between services in child and adolescent inpatient units and that it detects differences in services that reflect changes in the organization of one hospital. The I-MACST characterizes the treatment practices of an entire facility with little demand on staff time.
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