Measuring youths' perceptions of counseling impact: description, psychometric evaluation, and longitudinal examination of the Youth Counseling Impact Scale v.2

Abstract

The Youth Counseling Impact Scale (YCIS) is an empirically validated treatment progress measure that assesses youths' perceptions of the short term effectiveness of therapy. Since its initial publication, the original 10-item measure has been shortened to ease measurement burden and revised to include a question about a youth's insight into his or her strengths. The current study describes the development of the revised YCIS (v.2) and evaluates its psychometric properties. Additionally, this study examines whether the YCIS (v.2) total score or subscale scores change over time and investigates whether there are gender or age differences for youths' perceptions of the impact of therapy. Results found the revised version obtained comparable information to that of the original measure, and that the revised version retained the factor structure of the original model with one primary general factor of Counseling Impact and two secondary factors (Insight and Change). Results also suggested that while the YCIS (v.2) total score and Change subscale score did not change linearly over the course of treatment, the Insight subscale score showed a small but significant linear increase over time. No significant differences in YCIS scores based on youth age or gender were found. The implication of these findings, the clinical and empirical utility of this measure, and its limitations are discussed.