Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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The use of feedback interventions to inform treatment progress have increased in the past decades, but the mechanism of action is not sufficiently understood. It is hypothesized that feedback...Show moreThe use of feedback interventions to inform treatment progress have increased in the past decades, but the mechanism of action is not sufficiently understood. It is hypothesized that feedback interventions may work through adapting the expectation of therapists on the patient’s treatment outcome. The current study aims to investigate the effect of feedback (simple feedback, complex feedback, and no feedback) on therapists’ treatment expectations. Additionally, it is tested whether the effect of feedback on therapists’ treatment expectations is moderated by whether the patient is progressing or not. Lastly, an examination of the effect of feedback on therapists’ predicting treatment success, was evaluated, with an expectation that complex feedback would help therapists have a better prediction accuracy than simple feedback. To explore these hypotheses, therapists (N = 68) answered a few questions regarding their outcome expectations at sessions 1, 5, 10, and 15 while patients (N = 437) had to complete the Outcome Questionnaire-45 item prior to each session, for a maximum of 15 sessions. Results suggest that therapists’ expectations were not affected when they received feedback, neither the effect of feedback on therapists’ outcome expectations was moderated by patients’ progression. Additionally, it showed that feedback in general, led to better therapists' prediction accuracy than not receiving feedback. When a distinction between complex feedback and simple feedback was made, the results showed that therapists seem to benefit more from complex feedback. To conclude, feedback does not affect therapists’ treatment expectations over time. Moreover, feedback in general does affect therapists' prediction accuracy, and more specifically, complex feedback makes therapists’ have a more accurate prediction.Show less
