P02-143 - Quality Assurance in Ambulatory Psychotherapy: Designs, Tools and First Results

Abstract

Client and therapist document the therapy process using handheld computers by answering questions about symptom severity (e.g. depression, anxiety and stress), life satisfaction, therapeutic relationship and problem domains. The encrypted data is sent to the University of Mannheim via internet, where the data is analyzed by specific software. As a response for each data delivery, the therapist gets an individual feedback report, monitoring the therapy process of all of his / her patients in comparison to reference groups, build by the steady growing database of the trustcenter. The KVB provides the documentation software and handheld computers for a sample of 200 psychotherapists. 1694 patients participate in the prospective naturalistic study and 1091 patients have completed their therapy so far. As from now the first 1-year-follow-up measures are done. For outcome evaluation, an overall index of outcome quality is computed, aggregating single pre-post-measures to a multiple outcome criterion. 76.8% of the 1694 patients at intake are female; the age mean is 40.2 years (SD = 12.3). About 48.4% suffer from depressive disorders, followed by anxiety disorders (18.9%). Outcome results demonstrate impressive effect sizes (Cohen's d = 0.87) at discharge on a multiple outcome criterion. Electronic documentation is well accepted by most of the participating therapists. The encrypted computer based documentation is a secure and comfortable approach to improve transparency for therapists and patients. It provides useful information for therapy process optimization and outcome documentation of therapy results.