The Partners for Change Outcome Management System in the psychotherapeutic treatment of cannabis use: a pilot effectiveness randomized clinical trial.

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS) in improving the retention rate and reducing drug use in a clinic for drug use treatment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: One-hundred outpatients with cannabis use as the primary presenting problem were randomized to either the PCOMS (n = 51) or treatment as usual (TAU; n = 49). Eight weekly psychotherapy sessions were planned in both conditions. The primary outcome was treatment retention measured as the rate of attendance to planned treatment sessions and dropout. The secondary outcomes were current cannabis and other drug use assessed with the European Addiction Severity Index (EuropASI). Several explorative outcomes were analyzed. Blind assessments of drug use were conducted three and six months after baseline. Outcome analyses were conducted on both the treated sample with at least one psychotherapy session (n = 82) and the intention-to-treat sample (n = 100). RESULTS: The results showed no incremental effect of the PCOMS compared to the TAU condition, for neither treatment retention, drug use, or therapeutic alliance. CONCLUSION: The main findings align with previous studies that have found no effect of the PCOMS when employing outcome measures independent from the PCOMS intervention. The results are interpreted with caution due to implementation difficulties, which at the same time suggest challenges when employing the PCOMS in large outpatient clinics for drug use treatment.

The effect of implementing the partners for change outcome management system in a nationwide student counseling service.

The aims of the present study were to investigate the effect of implementing the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS) in the Danish Student Counseling Service and to explore both between-condition moderators and within-condition predictors of outcomes. The study was a nonrandomized controlled study, comparing the outcome of individual and group student counseling for 634 PCOMS clients to that of 740 clients having started treatment as usual (TAU) 2 years before the PCOMS data collection began. The primary outcome measure was the Global Severity Index on the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised. Main analyses were conducted with multilevel models on the intention-to-treat sample. The results demonstrated no effect of the PCOMS compared with the TAU condition, neither for the primary outcome nor for the number of dropouts or clients experiencing deterioration. The PCOMS effect was not predicted by the counselors' adherence to the PCOMS protocol. Because the counselor level explained less than 1% of the variance in outcome, the counselor factors (i.e., attitude to feedback, reactions to negative feedback, and deliberate practice) were not analyzed as predictors. In conclusion, this study does not align with previous studies finding a positive effect of the PCOMS in counseling settings. However, all previous studies relied on the PCOMS Outcome Rating Scale as the only measure of outcome, maybe indicating a measure-specific effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychological Mindedness, Personality Structure, and Outcomes in Short-Term Group Analytic Psychotherapy.

The present study investigated the treatment effects of focused short-term group analytic psychotherapy and examined whether outcomes were predicted by the client's psychological mindedness and personality structure as measured by the Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis (OPD). Treatment foci were formulated according to the OPD for 66 student counseling clients across nine groups. Two observers independently rated client psychological mindedness and personality structure. The pre-post Cohen's d effect sizes were large on the Global Severity Index (GSI) and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-64) and moderate on the Social Adjustment Scale Self Report, including all 66 clients starting treatment. Psychological mindedness significantly predicted two outcomes (GSI, IIP), and personality structure predicted one outcome (GSI). These measures could be helpful when selecting clients for short-term group analytic psychotherapy. We discuss study limitations and implications for future research and practice.

The evidence for the partners for change outcome management system is insufficient: Reply to Duncan and Sparks (2020).

In their recent article in Psychological Services, Duncan and Sparks (2020) criticize our meta-analysis on the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS; Østergård, Randa, & Hougaard, 2020) and judge it to be misleading and flawed. This reply points out omissions and mistakes in Duncan and Sparks (2020) and highlights our decisions regarding inclusion criteria, choice of outcome measures, and analytical strategy. We argue that the use of the PCOMS Outcome Rating Scale might inflate effect sizes because of social desirability. Therefore, independent outcome measurement is necessary for a stringent evaluation of the PCOMS as a routine outcome monitoring system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).