| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Institutes for mental health care consider scientific research an important activity. A good way to stimulate research is by simplifying data collection. Creating a minimal data set for research purposes would be one way to achieve this, however, this would only be possible if the researchers use a limited variety of data types. This article will address the question whether or not this is the case.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Researchers working in Dutch mental health institutes were approached and asked to complete an internet questionnaire on the individual variables they collected for, and measurement instruments used in, their studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the 92 studies described by the researchers, 124 different variables were collected, and 223 different instruments were used. A total of 66% of the variables and 73% of the instruments were only used in one study.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There is little commonality among research data, hence flexibility will be a crucial factor in facilitating data collection for research in mental health institutes. Nevertheless, reducing the variety of variables and instruments used is important to increase the comparability of results.</p>
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