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Psychological Flexibility and Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

Not Applicable
Conditions
Adjustment Disorder
Interventions
Behavioral: psychotherapy treatment
Registration Number
NCT02291068
Lead Sponsor
Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center
Brief Summary

The Objectives of the current research is to evaluate whether psychological flexibility influences psychotherapy outcomes in patients with adjustment disorder and depression. If indeed this is the case, we would be able to identify risk factors for low adjustment- such as low psychological flexibility, and develop psychotherapy that would try to enhance this ability.

Detailed Description

Subjects will be recruited from the Psychiatric daycare center at the Tel-Aviv Souraski Medical Center, serving the broader Tel-Aviv municipal area. Referrals to the department will be screened for eligibility to participate in the study according to the study's inclusion and exclusion criteria. Inclusion criteria would be adjustment disorder as the referral cause, age ranging from 20 to 65 years old and Hebrew speaking. Patients with major depression, a psychotic disorder, alcohol or drug dependence will be excluded. All participants will sign a written informed consent. The diagnosis of adjustment disorder will be confirmed by an open clinical interview followed by a Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV SCID-IV (Shalev et al. 1994; First et al. 1995).

Before starting the psychotherapy treatment, the patients will fill a psychological flexibility questionnaire (PFQ) and well-being questionnaire (MHI), in order to evaluate their psychological flexibility and well-being baseline. At the end of the psychotherapy treatment, they will fill the questionnaires again. Also, their therapists will evaluate the patients' levels of adjustment disorder or depression before and after the therapy.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
UNKNOWN
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
60
Inclusion Criteria

Adjustment disorder as the referral cause, age ranging from 20 to 65 years old and Hebrew speaking. The diagnosis of adjustment disorder will be confirmed by an open clinical interview followed by a Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV SCID-IV (Shalev et al. 1994; First et al. 1995).

Exclusion Criteria

Patients with major depression, a psychotic disorder, alcohol or drug dependence will be excluded.

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
SINGLE_GROUP
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
psychotherapy treatmentpsychotherapy treatment3 months long (12 sessions) dynamic psychotherapy.
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Effectiveness of psychotherapy treatment will be measured by the SCID-IV, CGS and CGI measures by the therapistsend of the psychotherapy treatment- an expected average of 3 months after starting therapy

Psychotherapy outcomes will be evaluated by the patients and therapists, using a number of measures. First, the therapists would use the SCID-IV, as they did at the beginning of the treatment. Second, they would fill out a CGS and CGI questionnaires.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Well being will be measured by the Mental Health Inventory (MHI: Veit and Ware 1983)Baseline and at the end of the psychotherapy treatment-an expected average of 3 months after starting therapy

The Mental Health Inventory (MHI: Veit and Ware 1983), a self-report questionnaire which measures psychological distress and well-being, psychiatric symptoms, and clinician rating of illness severity, will be used to measure psychological distress and well-being in the past month.

Therapeutic Alliance will be measured by the The Working Alliance Inventory-Short Revised (WAI-SR) (Munder et al., 2010)end of the psychotherapy treatment- an expected average of 3 months after starting therapy

The Working Alliance Inventory-Short Revised (WAI-SR) (Munder, Wilmers, Leonhart, Linster, \& Barth, 2010) is a measure of the therapeutic alliance that assesses three key aspects of the therapeutic alliance: (a) agreement on the tasks of therapy, (b) agreement on the goals of therapy and (c) development of an affective bond. It is a self-report questionnaire, which includes 12 items on 1-5 scale. A high score indicates a better therapeutic alliance. The questionnaire was translated to Hebrew and back-translated by the researchers of the current research.

Psychological Flexibility will be measured by the Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire (PFQ) (Ben-Itzhak et al., 2014).Baseline and at the end of the psychotherapy treatment-an expected average of 3 months after starting therapy

Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire (PFQ) (Ben-Itzhak, Bluvstein, \& Maor, 2014), which includes 20 items 20, divided to 5 factors, each relating to a significant domain of psychological flexibility: (1) positive perception of change; (2) characterization of the self as flexible; (3) self-characterization as open and innovative; (4) a perception of reality as dynamic and changing, and (5), a perception of reality as multifaceted.

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