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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2015 Aug;83(4):748-59.
doi: 10.1037/a0039302. Epub 2015 Jun 8.

The effectiveness of clinician feedback in the treatment of depression in the community mental health system

Mary Beth Connolly Gibbons  1 , John E Kurtz  2 , Donald L Thompson  3 , Rachel A Mack  1 , Jacqueline K Lee  1 , Aileen Rothbard  1 , Susan V Eisen  4 , Robert Gallop  1 , Paul Crits-Christoph  1
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

The effectiveness of clinician feedback in the treatment of depression in the community mental health system

Mary Beth Connolly Gibbons et al. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2015 Aug.

Abstract

Objective: We describe the development and evaluation of a clinician feedback intervention for use in community mental health settings. The Community Clinician Feedback System (CCFS) was developed in collaboration with a community partner to meet the needs of providers working in such community settings.

Method: The CCFS consists of weekly performance feedback to clinicians, as well as a clinical feedback report that assists clinicians with patients who are not progressing as expected. Patients in the randomized sample (N = 100) were predominantly female African Americans, with a mean age of 39 years.

Results: Satisfaction ratings of the CCFS indicate that the system was widely accepted by clinicians and patients. A hierarchical linear models (HLM) analysis comparing rates of change across conditions controlling for baseline gender, age, and racial group indicated a moderate effect in favor of the feedback condition for symptom improvement, t(94) = 2.41, p = .017, d = .50. Thirty-six percent of feedback patients compared with only 13% of patients in the no-feedback condition demonstrated clinically significant change across treatment, χ2(1) = 6.13, p = .013.

Conclusions: These results indicate that our CCFS is acceptable to providers and patients of mental health services and has the potential to improve the effectiveness of services for clinically meaningful depression in the community mental health setting.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Recruitment flow diagram for feedback versus no feedback conditions.
Figure 2
Figure 2
BASIS-24 scores across treatment sessions for patients whose clinicians were randomized to receive feedback compared to no feedback condition.
Figure 3
Figure 3
BASIS-24 scores before and after off track session for patients whose clinicians were randomized to receive feedback reports.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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