"It will get even better": preliminary findings from a trauma-focused psychotherapy effectiveness study reveal false positive patients’ long-term outcome expectations after the treatment
Sammanfattning
Background: There is considerable evidence that outcome expectations may predict psychotherapy
outcomes. However, little is known about the long-term outcome expectations following the end of
the treatment.
Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate patients’ long-term outcome expectations after traumafocused
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) psychotherapy in a single group effectiveness study.
Methods: Twenty participants with various traumatic experiences who completed the Brief Eclectic
Psychotherapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (BEPP) and all the assessments were included into
the study. Self-report measures were used to evaluate the therapeutic outcomes: Impact of Event
Scale–Revised (IES-R), Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation–Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) at pretreatment,
post-treatment, and 6-month follow-up. Subjective Units of Distress Scale was used to measure
long-term outcome expectations at post-treatment, asking participants to measure the expected
distress in 6 months following the treatment. Assessments at 6-month follow-up were used to estimate
the accuracy of patients’ expectations of their distress at previous post-treatment assessment.
Results: Significant decline of PTSD symptoms at post-treatment with large effect sizes was observed.
At post-treatment assessment participants expected significant improvement of their condition in 6
months after the treatment. However, therapeutic effects remained stable at the 6-month follow-up.
Conclusion: It is concluded that the PTSD patients, even after successful trauma-focused treatment,
tend to expect further significant positive changes. However, therapeutic effects were stable half a year
after the psychotherapy, and patients tend to have false expectations about further improvement of
their condition.