Assessing Psychotherapy Outcome With Feedback

The Family Institute at Northwestern University

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Family Dysfunction; Individual Psychiatric Disorder; Couple Dysfunction

Treatments: Other: Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC); Other: Treatment as Usual

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02023736

TFI-001

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is a comparison of client outcomes in two different types of psychotherapy treatment. In one condition clients will receive treatment-as-usual (TAU); the therapy that they would normally receive. In the other condition clients will receive treatment-as-usual but in addition their therapist will have access to empirical feedback on client progress. Clients in the feedback condition will fill out weekly online questionnaires, and their therapists will have access to a website that feeds back the results of these questionnaires. The purpose of the study is to understand the impact of providing such feedback to therapists. Participating therapists at 4 sites will offer all of their clients the opportunity to participate, and participating clients will be randomly assigned to either condition. This should result in a representative sample of client seeking treatment at these 4 Chicago-area clinics.

Enrollment: 1,000 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Client seeks therapy at one of the 4 participating sites
• For Individual therapy: client must consent and complete pre-test battery before the first therapy session
• For couple therapy: both clients must consent and complete pre-test battery before the first therapy session
• For family therapy: at least one client must consent and complete pre-test battery before the first therapy session
• Clients must be 12 years of age or older
• Clients must be able to read (English or Spanish) at a 6th grade level

Exclusion criteria

• Clients under 12 years of age
• Clients incapable of reading at a 6th grade level
• Clients who are blind, or are have sufficiently impaired sight as to be unable to read the questions on the web portal

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,000 participants in 2 patient groups

Treatment as Usual

Active Comparator group

Description:

Patients in the Treatment as Usual condition receive the same psychotherapy treatment as they would were they not enrolled in the study.

Treatment:

Other: Treatment as Usual

Treatment as Usual with the STIC (TAU + STIC)

Experimental group

Description:

Patients in the TAU + STIC condition receive the treatment that they normally would from their therapist, but with the addition of the STIC measurement and feedback system.

Treatment:

Other: Treatment as Usual

Other: Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC)