Prediction of Continuing Client Contact in a Brief-Treatment Campus Mental Health Agency

Summary.-The ability of the Counseling Readiness Scales to predict the number of sessions spent in short-term counseling or brief psychotherapy within a university mental health service was confirmed. Highly ready clients spent more time in both than those low on readiness. Significant positive correlations between number of sessions and rated improvement of clients within both shortterm modes of treatment suggest the practical utility of measurement of readiness. The importance of client dropout as a problem in service delivery is indicated by a recent study of brief psychotherapy (10 sessions) effects in a campus mental health agency. Even after removing 33% of the agency clients from consideration because of cheir "need for only minimal contact" (1 to 4 sessions), the investigators report a 28% loss through client dropout (Rockwell, Moorman, Hawkins, & Musante, 1976). The present study considered two questions relevant to the issue of duration of client contact in a campus agency offering only time-limited services. First, can an instrument empirically developed for predicting continuation or termination in psychotherapy some 15 years ago (Heilbrun & Sullivan, 1962) still be effective in these predictions under changed conditions which require that only brief services can be extended? Second, when psychological services are geared to meet their goals within a brief period, does the prediction of continuation/discontinuation have significance any longer? Errera, McKee, Smith, and Gmber ( 1967 ) , for example, reported no correlation between length of treatment and improvement in brief psychotherapy (up to 10 sessions). The 89 subjects in this study were college clients of the Psychological Center, Emory University, during the 1975-1976 academic year from whom Adjective Check List (Gough & Heilbrun, 1965) protocols had been collected at the time they applied for services. This number included 43 males (M.,. = 21.07 yr.) and 46 females (Mag, = 20.36 yr.). Services requested ranged from personal to educational or vocational, but no client was seen for more than 10 contacts. The staff of the Center is comprised of the faculty and advanced graduate students from the clinical psychology training program. The male and female Counseling Readiness Scales were derived by identifying the adjectives on the Adjective Check List which distinguished psychotherapy clients who discontinued prematurely and who continued (Heilbrun & Sullivan, 1962). Separate college norms are wailable for males and females which convert raw scores into T-score distributions having a' mean of 50 and a sigma of 10. Higher T-scores indicate an increased likelihood to maintain contact with the service. The staff were unaware of the readiness scores at the time they saw the clients in rhis study. The first question investigated concerned the ability of the Counseling Readiness Scales to predict the number of contacts with an agency offering time-limited services. This question was considered separately for vocational-educational clients (acwal range up to six interviews) and personal clients (up to 10 interviews). These analyses included zero-interview clients who applied for service but failed to subsequently return.