The Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-Set (APQ): A Validation Study

Abstract

Objective: This article reports the validation of the Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-set (APQ), a newly developed instrument, adapted from the well-established Psychotherapy Q-Set (PQS) and the Child Psychotherapy Q-set (CPQ). The APQ aims to describe the psychotherapy process in the treatment of adolescents in a form suitable for quantitative comparison and analysis. Method: The validation was conducted with the ratings of seventy audio-recorded youth psychotherapy sessions from a range of therapists, patients, and treatment stages, using two therapeutic approaches (Short-Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). Data analysis included intraclass correlation coefficients, Q-factor analysis, non-parametric mean differences, and Pearson correlations. Results: Results suggest that the APQ has good levels of interrater reliability, is able to identify differences and similarities of two therapeutic approaches, and good convergent and discriminant validity with a widely-used measure of therapist behaviours (the Comparative Psychotherapy Process Scale). Conclusions: The APQ reported good levels of validity and reliability. It is hoped that it will contribute to new ways of investigating the mechanisms of therapeutic change for those working with adolescents.

20/20 Hindsight: A 25-year programme at the Anna Freud Centre of efficacy and effectiveness research on child psychoanalytic psychotherapy

“…This provides a way to characterise individual sessions of an adolescent therapy and its progress over time in clinical terms that are quantitatively analysable. It can also be used in different forms of treatments, and indeed Calderon's work showed that the APQ distinguished between the techniques of therapists conducting CBT versus psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and that these differences corresponded in predicted ways to the appropriate CPPS scales (Calderon, Schneider, Target, & Midgley, 2017). We therefore have a way in the future to relate content and technique in these sessions (which have been shown to be adherent to their manualized models) to the individual patients' outcomes.…”

Short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy with a depressed adolescent with borderline personality disorder: an empirical, single case study

“…The therapeutic process was examined using the Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-Set (APQ; Calderon et al, 2017). The APQ is an adaptation of the Psychotherapy Q-Set (PQS; Jones, 2000), used in adult process research, and the Child Psychotherapy Q-Set (CPQ; Schneider & Jones, 2004), used in child process research.…”

Exploring In-Session Process with Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Psychotherapy with an Adolescent

“…The Q-set comprises 100 items that capture a wide range of phenomena (pantheoretical) and with Q-sort procedure the items are sorted into 9 piles from "least characteristic" to "most characteristic". The later development of The Child Psychotherapy Q-Set (CPQ) (Schneider, 2004) and Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-set (APQ) (Calderon, Schneider, Target, & Midgley, 2017) were adapted from the PPQ. The instrument enables description of the psychotherapy process in a form suitable for quantitative comparison and analysis.…”

“…APQ is intended to be neutral with respect to any particular theory of psychotherapy and should permit the portrayal of a wide range of events, interventions, and processes in the psychotherapy process. The validation of APQ was conducted with ratings of audio-recorded youth psychotherapy sessions from different therapeutic approaches (Short-Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) (Calderon et al, 2017).…”

“…N.Y.: Guilford Press (L.S.. Reprinted with permission of Guilford Press. Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-set (APQ) APQ(Calderon et al, 2017) is a Q-set composed of 100 items that describe the psychotherapy treatment process for quantitative comparison and analysis. The APQ is composed of three types of items: (1) items describing young person's emotional states, attitudes, behaviour, or experience; (2) items reflecting the therapist's actions and attitudes; and (3) items attempting…”