title: Testing the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) in a French primary care setting: predictive value and factor structure.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Working alliance has shown a predictive value of the outcome in different therapeutic settings but was not yet studied in a non-medical setting.
  
  
  METHODS
  The predictive value and the factor structure of the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) [36-item client version; as reported by Horvath and Greenberg (J Couns Psychol 36:223-233, 1989)] were studied in a French primary care setting on a sample of 130 adults accessing social services.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The WAI total score completed after the first meeting was positively predictive of quality of the working alliance 4 months later. An exploratory factor analysis produced two orthogonal factors which explained 45.12% of the total variance: a first factor (23 items) labelled 'positive expectations about the usefulness of help' and a second factor (13 items) labelled 'absence of suspicion about the effects of help'.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The WAI is shown to be applicable to primary care social work settings to measure the working alliance phenomenon and predict disruption of practitioner-client relationship.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Psychiatry of Adolescent and Young Adult, Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, 42 Boulevard Jourdan, 75014, Paris, France. nicole.guedeney@imm.fr
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Guédeney
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fermanian
authors.forename: Florence
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Curt
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bifulco
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012947:Social Work; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires