Abstract
Addressing perfectionism through psychological interventions represent an important avenue that can contribute to population’s psychological wellbeing. This study investigates the effect of an online intervention program for perfectionism implemented in Romania. After completing the online screening 41 adult volunteer participants with elevated levels of perfectionism were selected for this open trial. The Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS) Concern over Mistakes, and Personal Standards subscales, and Almost Perfect Scale–Revised (APS-R) Discrepancy and High standards subscales were selected as primary outcome measures. As part of the intervention program we used psychoeducation and cognitive-behavioral techniques to reduce perfectionism. Following this 45-days program participants displayed lower levels on both perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic striving (i.e., all primary outcome measures yielding a within-group Cohen’s d effect size between .23 and .55) and lower levels of depression, anxiety, stress, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, as well as increased self-acceptance (i.e., within-group Cohen’s d effect size between .11 and .40). Despite inherent limitations, these results provide initial evidence for the effectiveness of online interventions addressing perfectionism in a new culture. Using shorter, more engaging versions for guided online perfectionism interventions is proposed as a possible avenue to be tested in the future.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
To select participants with elevated levels of perfectionism we started from the cut-off scores suggested by Egan, Wade, et al. (2014) in our attempt to find a reliable operational definition of perfectionism.
Because the two measures used here (i.e., FMPS and APS-R) were designed to assess slightly different aspects of the multidimensional constructs of perfectionism, on the one hand we thought appropriate to use them in conjunction for their potential to nuance our investigation. On the other hand, we also took into account that the significant construct overlap could make our nuanced (thin-slicing) approach useless. If this would be proved true (as it was the case), using two measures for the outcome constructs still retains the value of doubling the assessment regarding the impact of the intervention program.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design under the supervision of the corresponding author Bogdan Tudor Tulbure. Material preparation, implementation of the study and data collection were performed by Adina-Brîndușa Flueraș, Oana Nădăban and Domelia-Semida Moga. Data analysis were performed by Silvia Magurean who also wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and read and approved the final manuscript.
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This study was conducted in compliance with ethical standards and in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval from the West University of Timisoara was received before the data collection.
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Tulbure, B.T., Flueraș, AB., Nădăban, O. et al. An open trial internet-delivered intervention for perfectionism. Curr Psychol 41, 8613–8624 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01286-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01286-y