Journal of consulting and clinical psychology最新文献

Objective: This randomized comparative effectiveness trial evaluated a novel insomnia treatment using acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) among women veterans. Participants received either the acceptance and the behavioral changes to treat insomnia (ABC-I) or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). The primary objectives were to determine whether ABC-I was noninferior to CBT-I in improving sleep and to test whether ABC-I resulted in higher treatment completion and adherence versus CBT-I.

Method: One hundred forty-nine women veterans with insomnia disorder (M_age = 48.0 years) received ABC-I or CBT-I. The main sleep outcomes were Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and sleep efficiency (SE) by actigraphy (objective) and sleep diary (subjective). Measures were collected at baseline, immediate posttreatment, and 3-month posttreatment follow-up. Treatment completion and adherence were assessed during the interventions.

Results: Both interventions improved all sleep outcomes from baseline to immediate posttreatment and 3-month posttreatment follow-up. At immediate posttreatment, ABC-I was statically noninferior for sleep diary SE and objective SE, but noninferiority was not statistically confirmed for ISI or PSQI total scores. At 3-month posttreatment follow-up, ABC-I was noninferior for all four of the key outcome variables. There was not a statistically significant difference between the number of participants who discontinued CBT-I (11%) versus ABC-I (18%; p = .248) before completing treatment. ABC-I was superior to CBT-I for some adherence metrics.

Conclusions: Overall, ABC-I was similar in effectiveness compared to CBT-I for the treatment of insomnia and may improve adherence to some behavioral elements of treatment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: This study determined the characteristics of engagement and whether engagement in an adaptive preventive intervention (API) was associated with reduced binge drinking and alcohol-related consequences.

Method: Incoming students were recruited for a sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART; N = 891, 62.4% female, 76.8% non-Hispanic White) with an assessment-only control group. The API occurred during the first semester of college, with outcomes assessed at the end of the semester. The API involved two stages. Stage 1 included universal intervention components (personalized normative feedback [PNF] and self-monitoring). Stage 2 bridged heavy drinkers to access additional resources. We estimated the effect of engagement in Stage 1 only and in the whole API (Stages 1 and 2) among the intervention group, and the effect of the API versus control had all students assigned an API engaged, on alcohol-related outcomes.

Results: Precollege binge drinking, intention to pledge a fraternity/sorority, and higher conformity motives were most associated with lower odds of Stage 1 engagement. Action (readiness to change) and PNF engagement were associated with Stage 2 engagement. API engagement was associated with significant reductions in alcohol-related consequences among heavy drinkers. Compared to the control, we estimated the API would reduce the relative increase in alcohol-related consequences from baseline to follow-up by 25%, had all API students engaged.

Conclusions: Even partial engagement in each component of the "light-touch" API rendered benefits. Analyses suggested that had all students in the intervention group engaged, the API would significantly reduce the change in alcohol-related consequences over the first semester in college. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: With its anonymity and accessibility, text-based online counseling has shown great potential in reaching people with mental health needs. One strategy adopted to meet the service gap is concurrent counseling, that is, each counselor attending to more than one client at a time. To date, there is no reported evidence supporting its rationality and effectiveness. This study investigated the potential opportunities, effectiveness, and caveats in concurrent service delivery and identified the optimal cutoff number of concurrent sessions while maintaining the quality of service at or above a set threshold.

Method: We analyzed the transcript of 54,716 online counseling sessions from Open Up, a free, 24/7 text-based counseling service, to develop an attention score that measures the attention allocation of counselors and examined the impact of the counselor's attention allocation on client satisfaction and service outcomes.

Results: On average, compared to nonconcurrent sessions, concurrent sessions were longer, more likely to end prematurely, and had lower client satisfaction. We also identified an optimal attention score of approximately 0.4 (out of 1.0, which denotes full attention), which translates to two to three concurrent sessions.

Conclusions: This study provides empirical evidence for the feasibility of conducting multiple text-based sessions concurrently without compromising service quality and client experience. Our method of measuring the counselor attention allocation offers a way to systematically assess and evaluate concurrent sessions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: The dose-response model of change in psychotherapy posits that each session of therapy is incrementally beneficial across patients. The contrasting good-enough level model suggests that patients improve at different rates in therapy and discontinue treatment when they are satisfied with their improvement. Support for each theory has been mixed, and many prior studies have relied on samples of patients receiving unstructured treatment approaches. We conducted this study to compare these two theories across two manualized treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Method: Two hundred eighty-four female veterans and military service members with PTSD (M_age = 44.79; 54.6% White non-Hispanic, 6.7% Black non-Hispanic, 37% other) were randomized to receive 10 sessions of prolonged exposure (PE), a trauma-focused therapy, or present-centered therapy (PCT), a non-trauma-focused therapy. Participants completed the PTSD Checklist (PCL) at even-numbered treatment sessions, and the timing of dropout/treatment completion was monitored.

Results: The point of highest risk for dropout differed between the treatments, with risk in PE corresponding to the beginning of imaginal exposures. In the PE condition, but not in PCT, a higher number of sessions completed increased the likelihood of achieving reliable clinically significant improvement. Across treatments, the rate of change in PTSD symptoms did not differ according to the number of sessions completed (b = 0.06, p = .687).

Conclusions: Findings support the dose-response model of change in psychotherapy. There were notable differences in dropout across the treatment conditions, including rates, timing, and implications for outcomes. These differences likely reflect differences in content between the protocols. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Although interpersonal problems are assumed to play an important role in the treatment of depression and anxiety, meta-analytic attempts to explore the association between interpersonal problems and outcome in psychotherapy for these patients are missing. This study aims to conduct a systematic review and meta-analytic synthesis of the association between patients' baseline interpersonal problems and outcome in psychotherapy for depressive and anxiety disorders.

Method: We conducted a three-level meta-analysis (i.e., disaggregating sampling variance, within-study variance, and between-study variance) of the interpersonal problems-outcome prediction (IPOP; as measured by the total distress factor of Inventory of Interpersonal Problems).

Results: We found 40 effect sizes (ESs) nested within 21 primary studies. The three-level model showed a significant aggregated effect size of IPOP, r = -.13, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [-.18, -.09]; t(39) = -5.71, p < .001; d = -0.27, with greater interpersonal distress being associated with worse psychotherapy outcome. Results showed significant heterogeneity across effect sizes with considerable variability across studies (I² = .39) and to a lower extent across reported outcomes (I² = .19). Graphical measures did not show evidence of a substantial publication bias.

Conclusions: This meta-analysis showed that baseline overall interpersonal problems are a small but robust negative predictor of psychotherapy outcome. Therapists might benefit from exploring patients' interpersonal problems at the beginning of therapy to enhance their prognostic inferences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Disadvantaged populations, including inhabitants of developing countries as well as racial/ethnic and sexual minorities in the United States, are disproportionally burdened by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, delayed HIV diagnosis, and unfavorable HIV-treatment outcomes. HIV interventions targeting single behaviors (e.g., testing) in these populations have shown to be efficacious at producing behavioral and clinical change but have been unable to eliminate the social health disparities associated with syndemics (i.e., a set of connected risks, interacting synergistically, and contributing to excess burden of disease in a population).

Method: This meta-analysis of 331 reports (clusters; number of effect sizes [k] = 1,364) assessed whether multiple-behavior interventions that target clusters of syndemic risks are more efficacious for those in disadvantaged regions and social groups.

Results: Across the board, multiple-behavior interventions were more efficacious than single-behavior ones as well as passive control groups among samples from countries with lower log gross domestic product (GDP), lower Human Development Index (HDI), and lower Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index.

Conclusions: Within the United States, the efficacy of multiple-behavior interventions was similar across different levels of representation of racial/ethnic and sexual minorities. The analyses used robust variance estimation with small-sample corrections to assess the differential effects of multiple-behavior interventions and Egger Sandwich test with the multilevel meta-analysis approach to detect selection biases. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Treatments that alleviate insomnia over the long term are critical. We evaluated the relative long-term efficacy of cognitive therapy (CT), behavior therapy (BT), and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for insomnia.

Method: Patients (N = 188, 62.2% female, 81.1% White, 6.5% Hispanic or Latinx, M_age = 47.4 years) with insomnia were randomized to eight sessions of CT, BT, or CBT for insomnia. Assessments at pretreatment and 12-month follow-up measured insomnia severity, insomnia response/remission, sleep diary parameters, and daytime functioning.

Results: Patients in all three treatment groups improved on insomnia severity, sleep onset latency, wake after sleep onset, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, work and social adjustment, and mental health (ps < .05). Moreover, in each treatment group, a substantial proportion of patients achieved remission and response. CBT was associated with larger improvements in insomnia severity relative to CT as well as greater remission and improvements in physical health, relative to CT and BT (ps < .05). For patients with a psychiatric comorbidity, CBT was associated with greater improvements in work and social adjustment and mental health, relative to CT (ps < 0.05). CT was not associated with change in time in bed, and none of the treatment conditions were associated with change in daytime fatigue (ps > .05).

Conclusions: These encouraging results suggest that therapists may be able to offer CBT, BT, or CT to improve nighttime and daytime symptoms of insomnia over the long-term, with CBT offering a relative advantage for select outcomes and subgroups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

In this article, Schueller and Morris discuss the recent advances made from large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence (AI). These advances include supporting humans to provide better interventions, understanding processes in clinical interventions, and providing ethical considerations for the use of generative AI in clinical research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).