[Drop-out from clinical psychotherapeutic treatment of personality problems].
BACKGROUND
Drop-out is a serious problem in psychotherapy. Earlier studies have shown that the main factors associated with drop-out are young age, low socio-economic status and pathological symptoms such as severity of the problems and problematic substance-abuse.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate patient's and pathological characteristics that predict drop-out among patients with predominantly personality problems.


METHODS
Patient's characteristics and pathological characteristics of 372 subjects were ascertained via a retrospective study by means of four databases: intake letters, scid-ii personality questionnaires, scid-i and ii interviews and discharge letters. The association between these characteristics and drop-out was tested by means of bivariate and multivariate analysis. results The drop-out rate was 33.3 %. The main predictors of drop-out were young age, a low Global Assessment of Functioning (gaf)-score and the existence of problematic substance-abuse at discharge. The degree and severity of axis i disorders and the nature of personality problems made hardly any contribution to the prediction of drop-out.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings indicate that more attention needs to be given to the existence of substance-abuse before psychotherapy begins. Drop-out is still a problem and is difficult to predict and hard to influence.
Cornelissen
A T J
AT
a.cornelissen@ggnet.nl
Poppe
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Ouwens
M A
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010352:Patient Dropouts / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D011613:Psychotherapy; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications; D055815:Young Adult