Development and Validation of a Brief Measure of Therapeutically-Induced Change

Abstract

Background: A premise of cognitive behavioural treatment is that individuals make cognitive, behavioural and situational changes prompted by interventions and that these changes bring about improvements in targeted outcomes. Aims: The present project set out to provide reliability and validity information for a brief measure of therapeutically induced change. Methods: A total of 281 participants, comprising three samples who took part in three different intervention studies, completed items relating to cognitive, behavioural and situational changes and completed measures relating to the intervention in which they participated. Results: The internal consistency of the scale assessing therapeutically induced change was high in the three samples. The scale showed evidence of validity through association with (1) more involvement in an intervention (2) reporting that an intervention was meaningful (3) being instructed to incorporate insights gained from an intervention into one's daily life (4) greater decreases in psychological distress and negative affect from pre-intervention to post-intervention, and (5) greater increases in positive affect from pre-intervention to post-intervention. Conclusions: The therapeutically-induced change scale may have utility as a process measure in various interventions.