Feedback in Couple and Family Therapy: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Area of Science:

• Psychotherapy research
• Clinical psychology
• Family therapy

Background:

• Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) is a recommended psychotherapy procedure for clinical feedback to enhance client outcomes.
• ROM serves as an early warning system for therapists regarding client non-response or deterioration.
• The Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC) is a specific feedback system for ROM.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the STIC feedback system (ROM condition) impacts outcomes in couple and family therapy compared to treatment as usual (TAU).
• To assess the effectiveness of integrating ROM into couple and family therapy settings.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial involving 328 adults undergoing couple and family therapy in Norway.
• Participants were randomly assigned to either the ROM (STIC feedback) condition or the TAU condition.
• Outcomes were measured using The Outcome Questionnaire-45 and The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale.

Main Results:

• No statistically significant differences in treatment outcomes were found between the ROM (STIC) group and the TAU group.
• Both The Outcome Questionnaire-45 and The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale showed similar results for both conditions.

Conclusions:

• The implementation of the STIC feedback system as ROM did not lead to improved outcomes in this sample of couple and family therapy clients.
• Potential design and implementation factors may explain the lack of detected differences, warranting further investigation.