The Crisis Call Outcome Form (CCOF) is a tool used to measure the impact of telephone crisis calls. It was originally used in a 1989 study in the Journal of Community Psychology (Echterling & Hartsough, 1989) to help them determine the stages or phases of helping in successful crisis calls to the Lafeyette Crisis Center.
The stages identified were:
- Climate setting
- Developing a positive relationship
- Establishing rapport
- Determining role of helper and caller
- Assessment of the crisis
- Identifying the problem
- Determining the factors affecting the crisis
- Affect integration
- Working to express feelings and understandings around the crisis
- Problem Solving
- Identify goals and explore options
- Make an action plan
The results supported that helpline volunteers were generally effective, although less effective with chronic callers who needed more problem-solving. This was later validated by Mishara (2007) who examined calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and determined that a collaborative problem solving model was more effective for repeat callers than an active listening model.
It has no built-in score but you can code the presence of each behaviour with a 1 and the absence with a 0 and use this to classify calls.
Since the Crisis Call Outcome Form is hard to find online, I’ve attached it in PDF format.
Bibliography
Echterling, L.G. & Hartsough, D.M. (1989) Phases of helping in successful crisis telephone calls. Journal of Community Psychology. 17, 249-257
Mishara, B.L., Chagnon, F.C., Daigle, M., Balan, B., Raymond, S., Marcoux, I., Bardon, C., Campbell, J.K., Berman, A. (2007 ) Which Helper Behaviors and Intervention Styles are Related to Better Short-Term Outcomes in Telephone Crisis Intervention? Results from a Silent Monitoring Study of Calls to the U.S. 1-800-SUICIDE Network. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 37(3). 308-321.