Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1975

Thesis Director

Randall H. Best

Abstract

One of the most critical problems encountered in clinical practice concerns the outcome criteria used for predicting therapeutic improvement. At present, there is no single outcome criteria that is universally accepted as evidence of improvement. Representative studies by Lubarsky et al (1971) have emphasized the magnitude of this problem by citing the many patient variables that may effect the outcome of a therapeutic relationship.

The importance of this therapeutic relationship in terms of time and committment on the part of both the therapist and the client, necessitates some objective means for first, the development of an instrument that can measure outcome criteria, and second, the development of a scale that can measure therapeutic outcome.

Like Luborsky et al (1971), Bergin and Garfield (1971), cite some additional client variables that may determine whether or not a client will improve. These variables have been incorporated in the Social History Questionnaire (SHQ), a paper and pencil intake inventory (Best, 1971), that was used in this study.

The present study was designed to construct a Therapeutic-Outcome scale using those items of the SHQ that best differentiated between the "improved" and the "not improved" groups of clients.

Ss were 100 outpatients who had completed the SHQ. Ss were divided into six groups, the total "improved" group, the total "not improved" group, the male "improved" group, the male "not improved" group, the female "improved" group, and the female "not improved" group, according to their therapists' ratings of "improved" or "not improved." The groups were then compared in terms of their responses to the SHQ. Of 393 SHQ items, 26 items were found to differentiate between the total ''improved" and "not improved" groups; 30 items were found to differentiate between the male "improved" and "not improved" group, and 33 items were found to differentiate between the female "improved" and "not improved" group.

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