Therapy-Monitoring

Digital therapy feedback and monitoring system in child and adolescent psychotherapy

Over the course of psychotherapy progress data are regularly collected in order to obtain changes in symptoms and other important parameters from the perspective of the patients and their parents or guardians. These data are already used in psychotherapy for adults in order to improve and individually adapt the results during psychotherapy through regular feedback. Initial meta-analyses show that such therapy feedback and monitoring systems lead to greater symptom improvement and fewer treatment discontinuations in adults (see de Jong et al., 2021; Lambert et al., 2018).

By now this has not been systematically applied in child and adolescent psychotherapy in Germany. In the research project we are aiming to identify suitable measures and to check whether these data can also be used for evidence-based individualisation and improvement of psychotherapy for children and adolescents.

References:

de Jong, K., Conijn, J. M., Gallagher, R. A. V., Reshetnikova, A. S., Heij, M., & Lutz, M. C. (2021). Using progress feedback to improve outcomes and reduce drop-out, treatment duration, and deterioration: A multilevel meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 85, 102002. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2021.102002

Lambert, M. J., Whipple, J. L., & Kleinstäuber, M. (2018). Collecting and delivering progress feedback: A meta-analysis of routine outcome monitoring. Psychotherapy, 55(4), 520–537. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000167