title: Influence of life events on outcome in psychotherapy.
abstract: The life events occurring to 64 outpatients participating in a psychotherapy outcome study were assessed for the 6 months before intake, during therapy itself, and during a follow-up period that averaged 7.2 months. Events were identified using a combined checklist and interview methodology. The impact of events was assessed by examining their predictive validity above and beyond that attributable to a set of demographic and clinical variables (sex, age, socioeconomic status, chronicity, and history of prior treatment). The major findings were that: a) life events did have a significant influence, but only at intake and termination and not at follow-up; b) "negative" events were more useful than the total number of events in predicting status; and c) when life events did have predictive power, the average increase in explained variance attributable to events was 13.4 per cent.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011336:Probability; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011613:Psychotherapy; D012923:Social Class