Naturalistic changes in subjective distress outside of therapy

To establish the effectiveness or efficacy of psychological interventions, it is important to understand the nature of changes that occur in the absence of therapy.

In this study, clinically distressed college students from 2 universities (n = 228) completed the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ)-45.2 on a weekly basis throughout a single semester.

Although 56.6% of the sample made no change or deteriorated, 43.4% made a reliable improvement. Change status was predicted by previous therapy experience and length of study participation. Multilevel growth modeling also indicated that participants' OQ-45.2 scores decreased over time (following a cubic trend) and the amount of decrease was associated with Time 1 OQ-45.2 scores.

Limitations of the study and further implications for treatment outcome research are discussed.