Abstract
Aims: To design, execute and report on research examining the factors which predict good therapeutic outcome following primary care counselling. Meeting the requirements: An empirical study addressing predictors of outcome in primary care counselling was designed and executed, and is described here. The literature on factors related to outcome of psychotherapy in general and counselling in particular is reviewed. The results are presented, interpreted and discussed. Research Questions: This study was designed, therefore, to identify factors relating to operationally defined ‘good outcomes’ following short term primary care counselling. In examining this broad issue the study aimed to address the following specific questions: 1. Are the client factors age, sex, employment status, marital status, number of presenting problems or degree of presenting distress, significantly related to ‘good outcomes’? 2. Are the process factors waiting time, number of sessions received, frequency of sessions or counsellor’s evaluation of appropriateness of referral significantly related to ‘good outcomes’? 3. Are ‘good outcomes’ significantly related to counsellor characteristics of age, and years of counselling experience? 4. On the basis of client, process and counsellor factors, is it possible to predict who will achieve good and poor ‘clinical outcomes’ with generic primary care counselling? ‘Good outcomes’: In questions 1-3 ‘good outcomes’ are defined in terms of degree of positive change from pre-counselling baseline as measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Good ‘clinical outcome’ referred to in question 4 was determined by a pre- to post-counselling change in clinical status using the operational definition of caseness for the General Severity Index of the BSI.