Wize University Psychology Textbook > Treatment of Psychological Disorders
Assessing Treatment Effectiveness
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Assessing Treatment Effectiveness
Just like other medical treatments and therapies, psychological treatments must be assessed to ensure they are actually effective and help people. Treatments that are assessed to be effective are said to be evidence-based.
Some self-report measures that could be used to obtain a preliminary idea of the effectiveness of the therapy could evaluate clients' emotions, thoughts, or behaviours following therapy
Just as experimental trials are used to evaluate the effectiveness of medications, randomized control trials (RCTs) can be used to evaluate psychological treatments
- Clients are randomly assigned to either the experimental group (receives the therapy being evaluated) or the control group
- Control group may not receive any therapy, however due to the potential ethical issues of withholding treatment from someone who requires it, control group clients often receive basic talk therapy (placebo) or a pre-existing treatment that has already been found effective
- Relevant outcomes are measured for effectiveness (i.e. behavioural or mood changes)
- Follow-up assessments are done down the road (i.e. 6 months or 1 year after trial) to assess the longevity of the treatment effect
- Statistical analyses are done to investigate any differences between the experimental and control groups
Some studies have found placebo effects where patients in the control group improved almost as much as those in the experimental group — suggesting that perhaps the feeling of seeking and receiving help alone can be very helpful for those who require it!