Improving psychotherapy outcomes and reducing therapist variability

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Can psychological therapists outcomes be improved and variability reduced in routine psychotherapy practice?

• IRAS ID

  248085

• Contact name

  Katy James

• Contact email

  kmjames1@sheffield.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Sheffield

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 3 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme has created major investment in psychological therapies for mental health difficulties and the delivery of the NICE guidelines for depression and anxiety in stepped care service delivery systems. However, research suggests that despite the delivery of protocol-adherent and evidenced-based practice, major differences still are apparent between psychotherapists delivering treatment. New statistical methods can now also isolate and measure the differences in outcomes that are due to patients and therapists factors. This has shown that there are differences between the average outcomes of different therapists (called the 'therapist effect'), and that these are more significant than differences between the types of therapy delivered. This study is the final of a series looking into the impact of a number of support packages for therapists on the 'therapist effect'.
  
  Therapists in an NHS service will be included in this study. They will have a range of numbers of years’ experience and levels of training. Routinely collected anonymised outcome data measuring depression and anxiety outcomes have been used to determine each therapists effective practice in terms of their patient outcomes. This analysis has been completed using data from 18months before and 18months after a naturally occurring service-led organisational intervention focusing on improving clinical outcomes. This final phase of the research project will develop and provide a theory-driven support package focusing on the therapists, aiming to improve therapist outcomes and so improve the consistency of outcomes across therapists.

• REC name

  North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2

• REC reference

  18/NS/0104

• Date of REC Opinion

  17 Sep 2018

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion