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Assessing clinical significance: does it matter which method we use?

David C Atkins1, Jamie D Bedics, Joseph B McGlinchey

  • 1Travis Research Institute, Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA 91101, USA. datkins@fuller.edu

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
|November 17, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Clinical significance methods for evaluating therapy outcomes are highly comparable, especially with reliable measurements. This study provides guidance for researchers on choosing appropriate methods for assessing client change.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychological assessment
  • Clinical psychology
  • Research methodology

Background:

  • Clinical significance measures evaluate client change in therapy.
  • Multiple alternative methods to the original Jacobson et al. (1984) exist.
  • Lack of systematic guidance complicates method selection for researchers.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To systematically explore data parameters influencing clinical significance methods.
  • To compare the performance of widely used clinical significance methods under varying conditions.
  • To provide guidance for selecting appropriate clinical significance measures.

Main Methods:

  • Simulation study design.
  • Exploration of data parameters: measurement reliability, pre-post effect size, and pre-post correlation.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Comparison of classification results across different clinical significance methods.

    • Main Results:

    • Classification results were highly similar across the evaluated clinical significance methods.
    • Method comparability increased with higher levels of measurement reliability.
    • Existing clinical significance methods demonstrate substantial agreement.

    Conclusions:

    • The most common clinical significance methods are largely interchangeable.
    • Recommendations for future research and application of clinical significance measures are provided.
    • Reliability of measurement is a key factor in the consistency of clinical significance outcomes.