Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Serfaty, Marc
• Csipke, Emese
• Haworth, Deborah
• Murad, Shahed
• King, Michael

Titel

A talking control for use in evaluating the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy

Ist Teil von

• Behaviour research and therapy, 2011-08, Vol.49 (8), p.433-440

Ort / Verlag

Kidlington: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Common factors predict outcome in psychotherapy, but there is a dearth of research defining and standardising control conditions. A description and evaluation of a talking control (TC) used in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for older people with depression in primary care is presented. Two hundred and four older people participated in a RCT of CBT for people with a Geriatric Mental State diagnosis of Depression (Serfaty et al., 2009). One in 10 session of CBT or TC were evaluated using the Cognitive Therapy Scale (CTS) to examine common and specific factors in therapy. 1005 therapy sessions were delivered; 508 for TC and 497 CBT. There were higher total CTS scores (P<0.001) for CBT (median 55.0; QR 52.0–55.0) than TC (median 23.0; QR 21.0–24.0). CBT scored better than TC for specific techniques (median 23.7; IQR 21.0–24.0 versus median 0.70.0; IQR 0.0–0.0, P<0.001). Both interventions scored highly for interpersonal effectiveness, but no difference was observed. The TC was easily delivered, deemed acceptable by patients and was not associated with harm. Development, standardization and measurement of a TC intervention is possible and provides a useful comparator in evaluations of effectiveness of CBT. ► Common factors in psychotherapy are associated with a positive treatment outcome. ► The feasibility of controlling for these common factors is questionable. ► It was feasible to deliver and asses a talking control (TC), to control for common factors in psychotherapy. ► Common and specific factors were compared for a TC and CBT using the cognitive therapy scale. ► Improvements with CBT appear to be related to specific rather than common factors in therapy.