Meeting the Challenges of Evidence-Based Practice: Can Mental Health Therapists Evaluate their Practice?

This cross-sectional study looked at the relationship between mental health therapists’ perception of treatments’ impact and actual change. Twenty-three licensed mental health therapists, providing ‘‘treatment-as-usual’’ to foster children, rated their impact on children’s complaints of depression, anxiety, behavior problems, and self-esteem after 6 months of treatment. Actual change was measured by taking the difference from preand posttreatment on standardized instruments: Children’s Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Child Behavior Checklist, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Of the 23 therapists surveyed, only a single therapist on a single outcome variable negatively evaluated the efficacy of their practice. No correlation was found between the therapists’ perceptions of client’s progress and actual child’s outcomes. Mental health therapists are unable to subjectively evaluate their own practice accurately. [Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 7:184–193 (2007)]