Effects of providing patient progress feedback and clinical support tools to psychotherapists in an inpatient eating disorders treatment program: A randomized controlled study

Abstract

Research on the effects of progress feedback and clinician problem-solving tools on patient outcome has been limited to a few clinical problems and settings (Shimokawa, Lambert, & Smart, 2010). Although these interventions work well in outpatient settings their effects so far have not been investigated with eating-disordered patients or in inpatient care. In this study, the effect of providing feedback interventions was investigated in a randomized clinical trial involving 133 females diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or eating disorders not otherwise specified. Comparisons were made between the outcomes of patients randomly assigned to either treatment-as-usual (TAU) or an experimental condition (Fb) within therapists (the same therapists provided both treatments). Patients in the Fb condition more frequently experienced clinically significant change than those who had TAU (52.95% vs. 28.6%). Similar trends were noted within diagnostic groups. In terms of pre to post change in mental health functioning, large effect sizes favored Fb over TAU. Patients' BMI improved substantially in both TAU and the feedback condition. The effects of feedback were consistent with past research on these approaches although the effect size was smaller in this study. Suggestions for further research are delineated.

The effect of outcome monitoring feedback to clinicians and patients in short and long-term psychotherapy: A randomized controlled trial

“…Lambert et al (2003) and Shimokawa, Lambert, and Smart (2010) found much larger effects of feedback on outcome compared to no feedback, ranging between .28 and .70, but their meta-and mega-analyses included only studies from their own research group and were mainly conducted in the university counselling centre. More recent trials, both inside and outside Lambert's group, have shown more moderate but consistent effects of feedback (Bickman, Douglas Kelley, Breda, De Andrade, & Riemer, 2011;Byrne, Hooke, Newnham, & Page, 2012;Newnham, Hooke, & Page, 2010;Reese, Norsworthy, & Rowlands, 2009;Simon et al, 2013;Simon, Lambert, Harris, Busath, & Vazquez, 2012).…”

“…Feedback seems mainly effective for patients who are not doing well in therapy, the so called "not on track" (NOT) cases (Carlier et al, 2012;Lambert et al, 2003), although some studies have found feedback to be equally effective for both "on track" (OT) and NOT cases Simon et al, 2013). NOT cases are typically identified as being those individuals who fall out of range of a positive expected treatment response.…”

Maximizing Psychotherapy Outcome beyond Evidence-Based Medicine

“…Simon et al [34] studied these methods with female eating disorder patients treated in an inpatient setting. These individuals had chronic courses and high levels of comorbidity.…”

What Is Individually Tailored Mental Health Care?

“…Hasta este momento, las respuestas a las preguntas sobre la efectividad y la utilidad de esta elaborada herramienta de resolución de problemas permanece abierta. Sin embargo, en base a la literatura acumulada en este campo (por ej., Shimokawa et al, 2010;Simon et al, 2013), se puede suponer que el uso de la herramienta por parte de los clínicos tendrá un efecto positivo en el resultado del tratamiento para pacientes con riesgo, aunque pueden existir restricciones (p. ej., De Jong et al, 2017;Lutz et al, 2015).…”