Background: The societal lockdown due to COVID-19 forced a change from in-person therapy to videoconferencing, which was introduced on March 16, 2020. Swift implementation of telehealth care was...Show moreBackground: The societal lockdown due to COVID-19 forced a change from in-person therapy to videoconferencing, which was introduced on March 16, 2020. Swift implementation of telehealth care was asked of therapists all over the country. Aim: To investigate whether the effects of treatment for personality disorders through videoconferencing were lower than through in-person therapy. Method: Patients who received treatment between January 2018 and May 2021 were divided into three groups, before (1), partially (2) and entirely during COVID-19 (3). With the ROM score OQ-45 SD as pre- and posttest measurements, a general linear model repeated ANOVA was conducted. We controlled for other variables that were potentially of influence on the achieved outcomes. Results: The hypothesis was not confirmed by the results. The results rather suggested that treatment through videoconferencing was more effective than treatment (predominantly) conducted through in-person. Conclusion: No evidence was found supporting the hypothesized diminished effects of treatment for personality disorder through videoconferencing. Videoconference therapy appeared non-inferior to face-to-face therapy for the treatment of personality disorders. The groups did not differ at the onset. However, treatments were shorter and the dropout rate was 15% higher in the videoconferencing group, which could have led to selection bias. Keywords: Personality disorder; COVID-19; treatment outcome; videoconference therapy; face-to-face therapy; observational design.Show less
Empathic accuracy and eye contact form the foundation of everyday human social interaction. Here, the association between the duration of eye gaze fixation of the perceiver on the eye region of the...Show moreEmpathic accuracy and eye contact form the foundation of everyday human social interaction. Here, the association between the duration of eye gaze fixation of the perceiver on the eye region of the target and the level of empathic accuracy when presented with dynamic emotional video stimuli was examined and it was determined whether gender plays a role in this association. In this study, 110 participants had their gaze behavior tracked while watching ten 180-seconds during videoclips of strangers telling an emotional autobiographical story. Participants had to rate the target’s feelings at the moment of recording the videoclip and their own feelings. It was hypothesized that people that spend more time fixating on the eye region of strangers have a higher level of empathic accuracy than people that spend less time fixating on the eye region of strangers and that this relationship differs between males and females. Linear regression analyses did not reveal significant evidence for a relationship between eye gaze behavior and empathic accuracy that is moderated by gender. Gaining more insight in the topic of eye gaze behavior, gender and empathic accuracy is still so valuable for the improvement in treatment for empathy-related difficulties and atypical gaze patterns that some individuals have to deal with in their daily life.Show less
Recent research has only shown little evidence for a relationship between patient characteristics and treatment outcome. It is proposed that patients with a higher need of Mental Health Care due to...Show moreRecent research has only shown little evidence for a relationship between patient characteristics and treatment outcome. It is proposed that patients with a higher need of Mental Health Care due to higher psychopathologic complexity receive more treatment compared to others to reach a comparatively good treatment result. The treatment dose in more complex patients might therefore be significantly higher than in less complex patients. According to that, treatment dose should mediate the relationship between complexity and outcome. Thereby, the main purpose of this study is the investigation of a proposed mediation effect by treatment dose, operationalized as treatment duration in minutes and treatment length in days. Clinical Complexity was based on the degree of psychopathological severity and treatment outcome was measured with the self-report questionnaire Outcome Questionnaire-45. This investigation is based on a sample of patients in ambulatory treatment, who suffer from anxiety disorders, originated from the GGZ institution Arkin, an MHC provider in the Netherlands. Finally, no mediation effect has been shown and no evidence for an existent triadic relationship between complexity, outcome and treatment dose has been found. Besides, treatment duration correlated positively with complexity. Patients with higher complexity also tend to have a less favorable treatment outcome compared with patients of lower complexity. The results of this study should be interpreted and dealt with caution due to potential threats to internal and external validity. In future research alternative complexity and treatment dose indicators need further investigation to assess the prognostic value of patient characteristics for treatment outcome.Show less
