Detecting therapeutic improvement early in therapy: validation of the SCORE‐15 index of family functioning and change

Abstract

The SCORE index of family functioning and change is an established measure, with strong psychometric properties, of the quality of family life. We report the sensitivity to therapeutic change of the short form, the SCORE-15. Data are reported from 584 participants aged above 11 years, representing 239 families. All couples and families had been referred for systemic couples and family therapy, completing the form at start of the first session and close to the fourth. The SCORE-15 is shown to be acceptable with strong consistency and reliability. Change over only three sessions was highly statistically significant. Further validation is provided by improvements in quantified scores correlating significantly with independent measures provided by family members and by their therapists. The SCORE-15 is a proven measure of therapy and of therapeutic change in family functioning. It is therefore a routinely usable tool applicable to service evaluation, quality improvement, and to support clinical practice. Practitioner Points• The SCORE provides practitioners with brief descriptions of varied aspects of family interaction that have proven significance for many families who present for therapy. • SCORE-15 can be used with confidence to monitor and report proven indicators of progress in systemic therapy. • Because SCORE identifies clinically significant issues of family interaction it has many potential uses in therapy. • There are many new possibilities for therapists to undertake collaborative research.

Non Violent Resistance parent training and adolescent substance misuse

“…Items are rated on a 5‐point likert scale ranging from ‘describes us very well’ to ‘describes us not at all’, with lower scores indicating better functioning. The Score‐15 has been found to have good internal consistency, .89 (n = 515), and sensitivity to clinical change in a large clinical sample (Stratton et al , ).…”

Reducing recurrent care proceedings: initial evidence from new interventions

“…However, we include them here in the spirit of sharing the experiences (including the pitfalls) of developing innovative methods to evaluate innovative services to reduce recurrent care proceedings. This is relatively uncharted territory in the sense that, methodologically, it falls between a mature literature on psychologically informed parenting interventions (see, for example, van der Ende, van Busschbach, Nicholson, Korevaar, & van Weeghel, 2014;Stratton et al, 2010Stratton et al, , 2014) and a mature literature on psychologically informed empowerment interventions (see, for example, Rogers, Ralph, & Salzer, 2010;Rogers et al, 1997). One clear lesson here is that, as evaluators, we needed to be more mindful of the potentially disempowering effects of methods intended to evidence empowerment.…”

Couple-Based Psychosexual Support Following Prostate Cancer Surgery: Results of a Feasibility Pilot Randomized Control Trial

“…Secondary outcome measures included the HADS (Zigmond and Snaith., 1983), Score-15 (Stratton et al, 2014) and a bespoke questionnaire eliciting health service usage in order to gain insight into the economic implications of the intervention. Demographic information was collected at baseline.…”