The Group Selection Questionnaire (GSQ; Cox et al., 2004) is a measure that has been developed to facilitate clinical decisions about a client's readiness for group psychotherapy. The GSQ has demonstrated an ability to predict which clients will experience a reduction in distress through the use of group psychotherapy. This dissertation examines the Group Selection Questionnaire's ability to measure client characteristics that predict the client's ability to benefit from receiving group psychotherapy compared to the ability to benefit from receiving another form of treatment, such as individual or a combination of individual and group psychotherapy, as measured by improved scores on the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45; Lambert, Gregersen, Burlingame, & Maruish, 2004). Archival data was analyzed using scores from a sample of 156 college-age participants. Multiple regressions showed that the GSQ and its subscales were effective at predicting improvement in symptomatic distress, but did not demonstrate an ability to predict who would benefit more from group, compared to individual or mixed modalities. Limitations of the study, implications for the measure, and future research are discussed.

Group therapy has been demonstrated to be effective through a number of factors. Group theorists and researchers have attempted to identify client characteristics that would enable the clinician to determine a client's appropriateness for group therapy. Reviews of research have identified client expectancies and positive and negative interpersonal skills as promising predictors of group process, outcome, and attrition. The Group Selection Questionnaire (GSQ) was created to provide clinicians with a short and useful tool to aid them in identifying potential members for therapy groups, and has shown positive preliminary results in the past. This study presents tentative support for the factor structure of the GSQ and compares the GSQ and the Group Therapy Questionnaire (GTQ), another well established pre-group selection measure. Convergent validity of the GSQ is generally supported. GSQ Demeanor, Expectancy and Total scale scores correlate significantly with the GTQ Expectations about Group scale. In addition, GSQ Participation, Expectancy and Total scale scores correlate with GTQ Interpersonal Problems, with more interpersonal problems indicating fewer positive interpersonal skills, better expectancies for group, and stronger overall group readiness. Implications of these findings are discussed as well as future research directions.