A methodology for preparing 'ideal' treatment outlines in psychiatry. The Quality Assurance Project.

The methodology of preparing treatment process criteria for agoraphobia and the depressive disorders is described. To avoid bias three sources of information were used: the results of a meta-analysis of the treatment outcome literature, the views of a sample of practising psychiatrists, and the views of a small representative expert committee. When criteria for schizophrenia and the neuroses have been completed the quality assurance project should serve two main purposes: first as an aid to continuing and postgraduate education and second as a basis for clinical review criteria required by peer review and other quality assurance activities.