Abstract
Outcome scores that are provided by patient report are routinely used in therapy outcome studies. Despite their popularity they are usually viewed with suspicion since they are assumed to reflect a considerable amount of distortion. Two procedures for estimating patient distortion and for creating corresponding correction factors for outcome scores are presented. When either procedure was used to correct the outcome scores of 34 outpatients from six therapy groups in a process-outcome study, a number of significant correlations emerged where none had existed previously when uncorrected scores had been used. When a third correction procedure based on social desirability was used, significant correlations did not emerge. The findings have implications for correcting patient distortion in both individual and group therapy outcome studies.
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Piper, W.E., Leonoff, D.J. Patient distortion in reporting outcome: A procedure for correcting patient outcome scores. Group 7, 33–42 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01456442
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01456442