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First contact session outcomes in primary care psychological therapy and counselling services
Author(s) -
Cahill Jane,
Potter Steve,
Mullin Tracy
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
counselling and psychotherapy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.38
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1746-1405
pISSN - 1473-3145
DOI - 10.1080/14733140600581457
Subject(s) - session (web analytics) , percentile , psychological therapy , psychology , service (business) , primary care , set (abstract data type) , clinical psychology , medicine , nursing , family medicine , psychiatry , statistics , computer science , anxiety , world wide web , mathematics , economy , economics , programming language
Evidence in the literature suggests that some groups have greater difficulty accessing psychological treatment than others. The present study set out to provide benchmarks from the CORE National Research Database, focussing on four primary outcomes following a client's first contact session – (1) accepted for therapy, (2) assessment only, (3) referred to another service, (4) unsuitable for therapy. Data from 34 primary care counselling services were collected which had used CORE‐PC as a service resource for at least two years. For each of the four assessment outcomes, the mean, standard deviation and 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles were calculated. Across the 34 services, an average of 81% clients were accepted for therapy with 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile values of 74, 82 and 89% respectively. The results indicate that working with benchmarks is an area in need of further research. Implications for policy and practice are discussed and attention given to the client's experience of seeking therapy.