Effectiveness depends on the specific disorder being treated and the skill of the therapist. The effectiveness of a particular therapeutic approach can be assessed in three ways: client testimonials, providers’ perceptions, and empirical research. Clients who get treatment for psychological problems often testify to their effectiveness.
What is the effectiveness of psychological treatment?
Effectiveness of Treatment. Research has shown that many people with psychological disorders benefit from treatment. Effectiveness depends on the specific disorder being treated and the skill of the therapist.
Are studies of treatment effectiveness improving?
First, a relatively consistent pattern of positive findings has emerged from recent research, and studies of treatment effectiveness conducted in recent years have generally improved in quality.
Why is it important that treatment be appropriate?
It is also important that treatment be appropriate to the individual’s age, gender, ethnicity, and culture. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical. The appropriate duration for an individual depends on the type and degree of the patient’s problems and needs.
How do you measure the effectiveness of treatment?
There are three main ways in which treatment effectiveness is measured: the patient's own impression of wellness, the therapist's impression, and some controlled research studies.
What is effectiveness of a drug?
Effectiveness can be defined as 'the extent to which a drug achieves its intended effect in the usual clinical setting'. 1. It can be evaluated through observational studies of real practice. This allows practice to be assessed in qualitative as well as quantitative terms.
What is difference between effectiveness and efficacy?
Efficacy is the degree to which a vaccine prevents disease, and possibly also transmission, under ideal and controlled circumstances – comparing a vaccinated group with a placebo group. Effectiveness meanwhile refers to how well it performs in the real world.
What does effectiveness mean in healthcare?
Efficacy, in the health care sector, is the capacity of a given intervention under ideal or controlled conditions. Effectiveness is the ability of an intervention to have a meaningful effect on patients in normal clinical conditions. Efficiency is doing things in the most economical way.
What is meant by clinical effectiveness?
Clinical effectiveness includes monitoring and improving the outcomes of patients and service users, and also involves: ensuring health professionals are up-to-date in their practices and properly supervised where necessary.
How to assess effectiveness of a treatment?
Empirical Research. Another way to assess effectiveness is through careful empirical research. Research has shown that some treatments are more effective for a particular problem than a placebo or no treatment. These treatments are known as empirically validated treatments .
Why do people go into treatment?
Regression toward the mean: People often go into treatment because they are in extreme distress. When their distress becomes less extreme, they may attribute this to the treatment’s effectiveness. But even without treatment, extreme distress tends to decrease.
How does regression toward the mean affect providers?
Regression toward the mean affects providers’ perceptions of success. They may believe that a client who entered treatment in crisis became less extremely distressed because of the treatment. However, such an improvement may have occurred without any intervention.
Why do people feel better after treatment?
The placebo effect: People often feel better after being in treatment because of their expectations that they will improve. (See Chapter 1 for more information on placebo effects.) The justification of effort effect: People may believe that treatment was effective because they spent time, effort, and money on it.
What is empirically validated treatment?
These treatments are known as empirically validated treatments . Researchers have to conduct two or more studies in order to conclude that a specific treatment is effective for a particular problem. Research shows that psychotherapy works for many psychological problems.
Why are testimonials unreliable?
Clients who get treatment for psychological problems often testify to their effectiveness. However, such testimonials can be unreliable for several reasons: 1 Regression toward the mean: People often go into treatment because they are in extreme distress. When their distress becomes less extreme, they may attribute this to the treatment’s effectiveness. But even without treatment, extreme distress tends to decrease. The tendency for extreme states to move toward the average when assessed a second time is called regression toward the mean. 2 The placebo effect: People often feel better after being in treatment because of their expectations that they will improve. (See Chapter 1 for more information on placebo effects.) 3 The justification of effort effect: People may believe that treatment was effective because they spent time, effort, and money on it. If people work hard to reach a goal, they are likely to value the goal more. This phenomenon is called justification of effort.
How is treatment effectiveness measured?
There are three main ways in which treatment effectiveness is measured: the patient's own impression of wellness, the therapist's impression, and some controlled research studies.
Why is cognitive therapy effective?
These kinds of studies have shown that for depression and panic disorders, cognitive therapy is most effective, potentially because these disorders are in part caused by the kind of negative thinking directly addressed by cognitive therapy.
Why is it important to have a patient's impressions?
Obviously if a patient feels better, that's great. So in one sense, a patient's impressions are extremely important--the goal of therapy is, after all, to restore her to mental and emotional well-being. But for the purposes of determining which treatments are most effective in which situations, there are several problems with a patient's own impressions of her progress. The first is simply that people in distress tend to get better. This is known as regression to the mean, or average, and it's when people have a tendency to move toward an average level of functioning or happiness from whatever state they are in. If you're really happy, you're most likely to get sadder, and if you're really sad, you're most likely to get happier. People spend most of their time feeling average, so moods that are above or below average are likely to return to this average. Since people usually enter treatment because they're feeling especially bad, they're likely to get better over time not because of anything the therapist is doing, but simply because they're regressing to the mean.
Why do people with schizophrenia have lower recovery rates?
Patients least likely to get better tend to think negatively and behave hostilely. For reasons therapists don't thoroughly understand , personality disorders and psychotic disorders, like schizophrenia, tend to have lower rates of recovery in general.
What are the shortcomings of a therapist's evaluation?
Shortcomings of Therapist's Evaluations. Therapists' evaluations of patients are subject to all of the same problems as patients' evaluations. They, too, may mistake regression to the mean for positive effects of treatment.
Why is empathy important in therapy?
Importance of Empathy In The Treatment Process. Regardless of the strategy they use, therapists who are warm and empathetic tend to have the highest rates of success with their patients. On the other hand, therapists who behave inappropriately can hinder therapeutic progress, or even do more harm than good.
Is stigma associated with therapy?
Stigma's Associated With Psychological Treatment. Therapy can only be effective if patients participate; many feel that there is a stigma associated with people who see therapists, or that therapy is just too expensive. In general, women are more likely to seek help than men.
Why are trials stopped early?
At times, trials are stopped early and reported because of positive, large treatment effects . However, early termination may introduce bias secondary to chance deviations from the “true effect” of treatment which would decrease if the trial was continued to completion.[15] .
Why is prognostic balance less certain?
At study's completion, the question of prognostic balance is less certain because of a relatively high rate of loss to follow-up.
What should urologists consider when making treatment decisions?
Finally, urologists should consider all patient-important outcomes as well as the balance of potential benefits, harms, and costs, and patient values and preferences when making treatment decisions. Conclusion:
Why is follow up important at the end of a trial?
In order to assure that both experimental and control groups are balanced at the end of a trial, complete follow-up information on each patient enrolled is important. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case at the close of a trial. Therefore, it is important to understand to what extent follow-up was incomplete.
Do RCTs have meta-analysis?
Ideally, a systematic review and meta-analysis of several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) will exist to guide treatment decisions. However, RCTs comprise a very small proportion of the urologic literature,[3] which inhibits meta-analysis.
Should urology trials be terminated early?
For this reason, critical readers of the urology literature should interpret trials terminated early with caution. In the case of the REDUCE trial, it appears that the trial went to completion, so this is not a concern in terms of the validity of the trial.
Why is meta analysis important in systematic review?
Systematic reviews are increasingly incorporating a statistical procedure called meta-analysis to synthesize findings from multiple studies. Meta-analysis enhances the quantitative nature of the review and helps to reduce bias and the potential for erroneous conclusions.
What is randomized controlled trial?
In random assignment, the researcher randomly decides which study subjects receive the intervention under examination (treatment) and which study subjects do not (control).
Why is it important to determine effect size?
Determining effect sizes is important because, as Lipsey (2002, p. 201) points out, an outcome evaluation of an individual program "can easily fail to attain statistical significance for what are, nonetheless, meaningful program effects.".
Why is meta analysis important?
This is important, because single studies based on a small number of subjects can produce misleading findings about a program's effectiveness (Lipsey, 2002).
Does sex offender treatment have a positive effect?
Findings from single studies of sex offender treatment conducted within the past 10 years remain somewhat inconsistent, but the weight of the evidence from more rigorous studies suggests that treatment — particularly cognitive behavioral approaches ― can have a positive effect.
Is a single study definitive?
There also is agreement in the scientific community that single studies are rarely definitive (see Lipsey, 2002; Petrosino & Lavenberg, 2007; Beech et al., 2007a). Individual studies with seminal findings exist; however, single studies — even a randomized controlled trial — should be replicated before definitive conclusions about a program's effectiveness are made, and the effectiveness of an intervention can always best be understood by examining findings from many different studies (Lipsey, 2002; Petticrew, 2007; Petrosino & Lavenberg, 2007). Researchers typically accomplish this by conducting a narrative or systematic review of a large body of research concerning an intervention's effectiveness.
