Development of a training programme in individual case formulation skills and a scale for assessing its effectiveness.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the skills involved in clinical formulation. The individual case formulation (ICF) approach, based on functional analysis, employs clinical descriptions that are theory-free and depicts formulations constructed according to a set of basic conventions. AIMS: We report a test of whether this method could be taught and if the quality of the resulting diagrams could be reliably rated. METHOD: Participants (n=40) participated in a training course in formulation. A draft rating scale was refined in the course of rating formulation diagrams and basic inter-rater reliability established. RESULTS: Results of the study support further development of the ICF approach.