Testing the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) in a French primary care setting: predictive value and factor structure

Area of Science:

• Social Work
• Psychology
• Healthcare Research

Background:

• The working alliance is a known predictor of therapeutic outcomes in various settings.
• Its predictive value in non-medical, primary care social service settings remained unexamined.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the predictive value and factor structure of the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) in a French primary care social services context.
• To assess the WAI's applicability in measuring the working alliance and predicting relationship disruptions.

Main Methods:

• The 36-item client version of the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) was administered to 130 adults accessing French primary care social services.
• The study analyzed the WAI's predictive validity for alliance quality at 4 months and its factor structure using exploratory factor analysis.

Main Results:

• The WAI total score after the initial meeting positively predicted the quality of the working alliance 4 months later.
• Exploratory factor analysis revealed two factors: 'positive expectations about the usefulness of help' and 'absence of suspicion about the effects of help', explaining 45.12% of the variance.

Conclusions:

• The Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) is applicable and useful in primary care social work settings.
• The WAI can effectively measure the working alliance phenomenon and predict potential disruptions in the practitioner-client relationship.