Experiences of 'non-response' in client-therapist dyads
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Experiences of 'non-response' in psychological therapy: a qualitative study of client-therapist dyads. On the information sheets and consent forms, the title of the study is stated as 'client and therapist experiences of psychological therapy in which the outcome measures do not demonstrate change' in order to make it easier for participants to understand.
IRAS ID
219943
Contact name
Claire Morton
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 31 days
Research summary
Psychotherapy research suggests that somewhere between 18-56% of clients do not achieve a significant improvement on standardised measures of outcome, such as symptom-based questionnaires, which is known as non-response. However, despite the considerable proportion of clients that experience non-response, little is known about what happens in therapy that might limit clients’ progress or how lack of change on standardised outcome measures compares with clients' and therapists' subjective experiences of meaningful improvement or lack of improvement.
The present study is a qualitative investigation of how clients and therapists who have worked together make sense of therapy in which the outcome measures do not demonstrate statistically significant change. This could lead to a better understanding of barriers to progress in therapy, provide an insight into how outcomes measures might be improved and have implications for how the results of studies using such measures are interpreted. Participants will be recruited from NHS Adult Psychological Therapies services in Yorkshire and invited to take part in an individual interview lasting 60-90 minutes about their experience and understanding of the therapy process and outcome. Participants will also complete a brief demographic questionnaire, which will be used to contextualise the sample. As this is a piece of doctoral research, the data collection and analysis will take approximately 9 months and the final report will be written up by Summer 2018.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/NW/0299
Date of REC Opinion
12 May 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion