Attitudes of Austrian psychotherapists towards process and outcome monitoring

Abstract

While monitoring systems in psychotherapy have become more common, little is known about the attitudes that mental health practitioners have towards these systems. In an online survey among 111 Austrian psychotherapists and trainees, attitudes towards therapy monitoring were measured. A well-validated questionnaire measuring attitudes towards outcome monitoring, the outcome measurement questionnaire (OMQ), was used. Clinicians' theoretical orientations as well as previous knowledge and experience with monitoring systems were associated with positive attitudes towards monitoring. Possible factors that may have led to these findings, like the views of different theoretical orientations or obstacles in Austrian public health care, are discussed.

Therapist-related feasibility of blended group therapy (bGT): Mixed methods study of a brief online- and mobile-supported group intervention for major depression (Preprint)

“…Even though not all therapists initially were fond of bGT, their retrospective appraisals can be described as positive. In line with previous research on individual therapy, experience with the blended format increased therapists' self-reported willingness to work with this novel approach [83,84]. Moreover, some therapists stated that it might be more difficult to attract experienced or less interested therapists.…”

Theory of Planned Behavior

“…Namely, it may be easier to perform CBT interventions, digitally, than to perform psychodynamic psychotherapeutic interventions. Implementing psychotherapeutic interventions requires the use of nonverbal communication skills and the creation of therapeutic alliances that may not be easily achieved remotely/digitally (Carper et al, 2013; Kaiser et al, 2018; Schröder et al, 2017). Findings from previous studies also revealed that digital therapy makes it difficult for therapists to express empathy and build a good therapeutic alliance (Rigabert et al, 2018; Shulman and Shruf, 2020).…”

Implementing routine outcome monitoring in the treatment of a patient with obsessive‐compulsive disorder

“…Some clinicians have doubts about the clinical utility of the data when it comes to capturing what is really relevant for a successful treatment. For instance, there are concerns about the strain that monitoring puts on clients as well as doubts concerning its validity and its potential to be dismissive of subjective experience (Kaiser et al, 2018). De Jong (2016) identified difficulties in dealing with negative feedback obtained through monitoring systems as an important barrier in implementation.…”