Therapist Effects & Professional Practice Variability in IAPT
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Therapist effects and variability in professional approaches and its impact on patient outcomes
IRAS ID
197276
Contact name
Nick Firth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Sheffield
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 14 days
Research summary
The current study seeks to compare differences in the outcomes of patients after receiving psychological treatment, looking at two main factors. One factor is the influence of different individual therapists, known as a "therapist effect". The other factor is the influence of the specific model of therapy (in this study, comparing cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT] with counselling).
The study aims to examine data from a psychological service that is part of the national Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative. The study aims to use routinely collected anonymised data that was collected between June 2010 and October 2013. Eligible data from this sample comprises around 5000 patients seen by around 65 therapists.
Particular outcome variables of interest are
1) scores on two psychological outcome measures (the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7))
2) whether the patient completed therapy or ended the therapy early, sometimes known as "dropping out".The data will be analysed using a statistical approach called "multilevel modelling". This approach focuses on the differences between therapists, after controlling for differences between patients.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - South Yorkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/YH/0028
Date of REC Opinion
4 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion