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Can Therapists Predict Length of Treatment from Referral Letters? A Pilot Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2009

David Westbrook
Affiliation:
Warneford Hospital, Oxford

Extract

Seven experienced clinicians were asked to judge how many sessions patients in a clinical psychology out-patient clinic would take to complete treatment, using patient referral letters as their only data. Results showed the clinicians were very poor at making this judgement and generally did no better than chance. Their clinical predictions were compared with statistical data using a regression analysis of initial questionnaire measures. The regression equation did a little better on some judgements, but still failed to predict long-term treatment.

Type
Brief Clinical Reports
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 1991

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