Compare methods

	Target Complaint Scaling	Single-System Design
Field	Social Work	Social Work
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1966	2009
Originator	Carolyn C. Battle, Jerome D. Frank & colleagues (Johns Hopkins)	Martin Bloom, Joel Fischer & John G. Orme (codification in social work)
Type	Individualized outcome measure based on client-elicited presenting complaints	Time-series design for evaluating intervention with a single client system
Seminal source	Battle, C. C., Imber, S. D., Hoehn-Saric, R., Stone, A. R., Nash, E. R., & Frank, J. D. (1966). Target complaints as criteria of improvement. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 20(1), 184–192.	Bloom, M., Fischer, J., & Orme, J. G. (2009). Evaluating Practice: Guidelines for the Accountable Professional (6th ed.). Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. ISBN: 9780205458066
Aliases	Target Complaints, Target Complaint Method, Battle Target Complaints, Target Problem Scaling	Single-Subject Design, Single-Case Design, N-of-1 Design, Single-System Evaluation
Related	4	4
Summary	Target complaint scaling is an individualized outcome measure in which the client names the specific complaints that brought them to treatment, each complaint is rated for severity at the outset and again at follow-up, and the change in those ratings indexes improvement. Introduced by Carolyn Battle, Jerome Frank, and colleagues at Johns Hopkins in 1966, it grounds outcome measurement in the client's own presenting problems rather than a fixed questionnaire, making it an early and influential model for person-centered, idiographic outcome assessment in psychotherapy and social work.	A single-system design is a time-series approach to evaluating practice in which a single client system — an individual, family, group, or organization — is measured repeatedly on a clearly defined target before and during (and sometimes after) an intervention. By tracking the same system over time rather than comparing a treatment group to a control group, it lets a practitioner judge whether their own intervention is associated with change in the people they actually serve. It is the methodological backbone of the 'accountable professional' tradition codified by Bloom, Fischer, and Orme.