Outcome Quality in Outpatient Behavioral Therapy

In outpatient psychotherapy, an internal quality management is mandatory. The outcome quality plays a key role in this respect. The question whether the results of efficacy studies can be transferred to the outpatient setting and how the outcome quality can be assessed remains open. This study aims to examine treatment outcomes of outpatient behavioral therapy (pre-post design) using available data from the SCL-90®-S and the PSSI (N=518). For the SCL-90®-S, a significant symptom improvement (p≤.001) was found whereas no clinically relevant changes could be identified for the PSSI. The study shows that outpatient behavioral therapy is also effective under natural conditions and that progress monitoring can help to assess the outcome quality.