This study was devised to determine the effectiveness of a theoretically-based pretherapy training procedure in enhancing group cognitive therapy for depressed older adults. Twenty-nine subjects were randomly assigned to a pretherapy training condition or an attention-placebo control condition. All subjects were 65 years of age or older, had a score of 14 or higher on the Beck Depression Inventory or 14 or more on the Geriatric Depression Scale, and had no previous experience in psychotherapy or special knowledge of the psychotherapeutic process. Subjects in both conditions received four sessions in the pretherapy phase, followed by 12 sessions in the therapy phase. The pretherapy training procedure was based on Bandura's social cognitive theory and included verbal persuasion (written and verbal material), vicarious experience (videotape), and performance accomplishment (structured group exercises). Four categories of dependent variables were examined: attendance and dropout rates, immediate effects of pretherapy training (i.e., knowledge about therapy and role expectations), observer ratings of in-therapy client behavior, and outcome as measured by subject and observer ratings of improvement throughout therapy. The results revealed no significant differences between conditions on attendance and dropout rates. Subjects in the pretherapy training condition had significantly greater knowledge of psychotherapy at the end of the pretherapy phase than subjects in the attention-placebo condition. The analysis of subject role expectancies in the pretherapy phase revealed that subjects in the pretherapy training condition exhibited significantly less audience-seeking expectancies than subjects in the attention-placebo condition. The process measure revealed that subjects in the pretherapy training condition made more statements related to the problems they were experiencing than subjects in the attention-placebo condition. There were no significant differences between conditions with respect to outcome. For the two conditions taken together, 53.7% of the subjects exhibited clinically significant improvement by the end of therapy. The results were discussed in terms of the appropriateness of measuring role expectancies, and suggestions were made for measuring other expectancies, based on social cognitive theory. The clinical implications of the findings as well as the feasibility of in vivo use of pretherapy training procedures were also discussed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/7683 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Latour, David. |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 280 p. |
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