Communicating with clients about treatment outcomes: the use of meta-analytic evidence in collaborative treatment planning.
The purpose of this article is to describe how therapists can use information from the research literature, specifically from meta-analyses, to inform clients and their family members about probable outcomes of participating, or not participating, in treatment. Meta-analyses are particularly useful to clinicians because they summarize findings from a large number of outcome studies in a rigorous, comprehensive, and concise format. The quantitative presentation of meta-analyses may be daunting to those who are not familiar with meta-analytic procedures and statistics. Therefore, this article describes a simple method for making clinically relevant interpretations of meta-analytic results. Furthermore, specific examples that are based on actual meta-analyses are given as models for communicating with clients and their family members about treatment outcomes in order to facilitate collaboration during treatment planning.
Department of Occupational Therapy, Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, MA 02215, USA.
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Tickle-Degnen
D003142:Communication; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008404:Massachusetts; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000379:methods; D010347:Patient Care Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010358:Patient Participation / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome