Therapist Interventions and Skills as Predictors of Dropout in Outpatient Psychotherapy
Autor: | Kaitlyn Poster, Stefan G. Hofmann, Björn Bennemann, Wolfgang Lutz |
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Rok vydání: | 2021 |
Předmět: |
Psychometrics
Universities medicine.medical_treatment education Psychological intervention Cognition Professional-Patient Relations behavioral disciplines and activities Session (web analytics) Psychotherapy Cognitive behavioral therapy Clinical Psychology Outpatients medicine Humans Outpatient clinic Psychology Competence (human resources) Dropout (neural networks) Clinical psychology Dyad |
Zdroj: | Behavior Therapy. 52:1489-1501 |
ISSN: | 0005-7894 |
Popis: | The current study employed machine learning to investigate whether the inclusion of observer-rated therapist interventions and skills in early sessions of psychotherapy improved dropout prediction beyond intake assessments. Patients were treated by postgraduate clinicians at a university outpatient clinic. Psychometric instruments were assessed at intake and therapeutic interventions and skills in the third session were routinely rated by independent observers. After variable preselection, an elastic net algorithm was used to build two dropout prediction models, one including and one excluding observer-rated session variables. The best model included observer-rated variables and was significantly superior to the model including intake variables only. Alongside intake variables, two observer-rated variables significantly predicted dropout: therapist use of feedback and summaries and treatment difficulty. Although not retained in the final prediction model, the observer-rated use of cognitive techniques was also significantly correlated with dropout. Observer ratings of therapist interventions and skills in early sessions of psychotherapy improve predictors of dropout from psychotherapy beyond intake variables alone. Future research could work toward personalizing dropout predictions to the specific dyad, thereby improving their validity and aiding therapists to recognize and react to increased dropout risk. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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