Using Outcome Measures

Question 1

What are the aims of evidence based practice?

Answer 1

-Seeks to identify repeatable therapeutic steps that reliably produce meaningful improvements – thus manuals and protocols for therapy
-Utilize best research to inform practice

Question 2

A client receiving a psychological intervention is better of my what percentage than someone not receiving treatment?

Answer 2

On average the typical psychological therapy client is better off than 75% of people receiving no treatment (Smith and Glass, 1980; IAPT 2022).

Question 3

What do guidelines such as “Nice” rely on to instantiate their guidance?

Answer 3

Guidelines (e.g. NICE) rely on meta-analysis for particular disorders

Question 4

For some psych disorders there’s no evidence for more effectiveness of one treatment than any other. What disorder is that?

Answer 4

Depression

Question 5

What’s the natural remission rate for depression?

Answer 5

2% (10 week course of treatment)

Question 6

How can we assess the reliability of change?

Answer 6

Reliable Change Index (RCI) Jacobson and Truax (1991). It is defined as the change in a client’s score divided by the Standard Error of the Difference for the test(s) being used.

In other words, the RCI is equal to the individual’s score before the intervention minus their score after the intervention then divided by the Standard Error of the Difference of the test.

Question 7

What are some of the criterions for clinically significant change?

Answer 7

-Criterion A is about moving out of the clinical range and states that the post - treatment score should be more than two standard deviations from the mean of the clinical population, towards the mean of the normal population.
-Criterion B is about moving towards the normal range and states that the post - treatment score should be within two standard deviations of the mean of the normal population, away from the mean of the clinical population;
-Criterion C is about moving in the right direction and states that the post - treatment score should go across a point halfway between the clinical and normal means – in other words, it is closer to the average score in the normal range than the clinical range.

Question 8

What’s the relapse rate for depression after clinical treatment?

If you’ve had 3 previous episodes of depression, what’s the relapse rate?

Answer 8

50%

80/90%

Question 9

What’s the difference between a nomothetic vs ideographic outcome?