Do routine outcome monitoring measures tell the same story? Evaluating outcome trajectories and clinical outcomes for the outcome rating scale and outcome questionnaire - 45.

Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) of psychotherapy improves client outcomes and reduces premature terminations. Two ROM systems with the most empirical support are the OQ System (Lambert, 2010) and the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS; Duncan, 2012; Miller et al., 2005). We evaluated if the global distress measures, the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS; PCOMS) and the Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ-45; OQ System) show similar outcome trajectories and rates of reliable and clinically significant change when completed by the same clients.Participants (N = 290) were clients from archived data collected in a training clinic for a psychology doctoral program in the western United States, who completed both the ORS and OQ-45 across treatment.Bi-variate correlations between the ORS and OQ-45 were highly correlated at the first session (r = -.73), and for later sessions linear and quadratic estimates were only moderately related (rs = -.31 to -.57). Statistically significantly more clients indicated both reliable change and clinically significant change on the ORS compared to the OQ-45.The results indicate that these measures are correlated but not interchangeable in relation to the conclusions they generate about treatment outcomes. Measurement tools should be carefully considered given the potential for different conclusions to be drawn regarding treatment progress and outcomes.

The cerebral blood distribution in dogs and cats. An anatomical and functional study.

On the basis of corrosion preparations and of microsphere studies, the following characteristics of the canine and feline cerebral circulation were observed. (1) In cats, a greater part of the vertebral arterial blood goes to the brain and it is more specifically restricted to the ponto-medullary and cerebellar structures. These structures received approximately 3 times more microspheres in cats than in dogs. (2) In dogs, an important amount of vertebral blood goes to the neck muscles, and the intracranial vertebral blood supply is spread over a greater area of the brain, including the thalamo-hypothalamic and posterior cortical zone. (3) In cats the thalamo-hypothalamic area receives a greater amount of blood via the common carotid artery than in dogs. (4) In both animal species, the vascular connections between the left and right side of the brain are more extensive in the vertebral than in the carotid bed. However, for either vascular bed, a more important left to right transmission was found in the dog.