Readiness to change as a predictor of treatment attendance.

Abstract

Premature termination of therapy has long been recognized as a problem in the mental health field. The answers to why clients terminate therapy prematurely and how to prevent premature termination have been a source of recent debate with the advent of managed care. Results of previous studies attempting to predict premature termination have been disappointing because little information has been obtained identifying what exactly predicts premature termination. Focusing on client variables as a predictor of premature termination appears to be a likely way to examine this phenomenon. This study used the Transtheoretical Model of Change and analyzed the relationship between client readiness to change and treatment attendance and between client gender and treatment attendance. A sample of 50 non-court referred clients were drawn from a community mental health center serving a midwestern area. They were administered a questionnaire that classified them into one of four distinct stages of change. Treatment attendance was tracked for each client over a one month period. Premature termination was defined as clients who failed to attend their scheduled appointment, failed to reschedule their next appointment within a 24-hour period, or failed to inform the therapist they no longer wished to continue therapy. A chi square was performed to identify the relationship between client stage of change and treatment attendance. The results indicated that client stage of change significantly predicted treatment attendance. These results indicate that clients' readiness for change can be used successfully to predict treatment attendance. This predictive ability could possibly help in the implementation of interventions that would effectively maximize client attendance at therapy.