The article by Gonçalves et al. in the Clinical Psychology in Europe (CPE) journal presents the European Psychotherapy Consortium (EPoC), which aims to standardize the outcome measurement in psychotherapy in all of Europe. The first step of the consortium is adopting the Emotional and Psychological Outcome (EPO-1), a single-item self-report tool. This initiative addresses the challenge of different outcome measures and aims to facilitate research collaborations among countries. The article describes the research results, the translation process and the potential future of the consortium.
A new European project is forging a path to a more practical and deepened understanding of the effectiveness of psychological therapies in the actual context of healthcare. This initiative, launched by the Europe Chapter of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, aims to collect data on tens of thousands of patients per year, offering a broader perspective based on the clinical daily practice.
In addition to the therapies developed based on scientific evidence, the evidence directly collected from the clinical practice has been responding to crucial questions for patients and mental health professionals. Through the implementation of regular assessments in routine care, practitioners may have a timely support in therapeutic decision-making, while researchers analyze the data collected to better understand the relation between the characteristics of the therapists and the therapy outcomes.
The research within this consortium revealed a major obstacle for the creation of a shared set of data: the diversity of assessment measures used by different professionals and organizations. 87 different measures of pre and post therapy outcomes were identified! This variation hinders the comparative analysis between different contexts and interventions.
To facilitate a uniform and comparative analysis, researchers proposed a single-item measure, named Emotional and Psychological Outcome (EPO-1). This measure was translated into several European languages, aiming to simplify the monitoring of the therapeutic outcomes in an accessible and universal way.
Although in an initial stage, the project aims for a future in which it will be possible to “translate” different outcome measures into a common language. The creation of a specialized task force is being prepared, aiming to guide the collection of new data and promote the use of common metrics between European countries. This initiative may open up new perspectives for psychological science, enabling the comparison of outcomes between different nations and contexts, and making therapies more effective and adjusted to the actual needs of patients.
Full article: https://doi.org/10.32872/cpe.12037