Efectividad de los tratamientos psicológicos en el ámbito aplicado

Resumen

Mental health disorders are becoming more prevalent in the society. Any mental health alteration causes a severe impact in the people quality of life. So, their treatment has achieved great importance. Initiatives are needed to discern not just which treatment is effective, but in which conditions and for whom and, if possible, achieve it in the shortest time. Once the efficacy is established, further step must be taken to establish the effectiveness. After that, the third step to consider would be the efficiency.The current thesis has a double objective. Firts, it attempts to verify whether the Empirically Supported Treatment ETS can prove effectiveness in the applied field, especially in the anxiety disorders. Second, it is hoped that the present work serves to the dissemination of knowledge among psychologists.The current research gathers the results of four articles. The sample was form with the patients that had sought care in the Clinical Psychology Unit of the UCM, being a total of 122, and patients of the University Psychology Clinic of the UCM who demanded treatment for Social Phobia N igual a71 and Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia N igual a50. Patients profile was of a woman, young, single and with university studies.The independent variable was the administration of EST for each disorder. The dependent variables were divided into sociodemographic, clinical, treatment and economic factors. A quasi-experimental design has been used for these works, without random assignment and incidental samples. Among people who look for assistance in the clinical practice, social phobia was the most common within the anxiety disorders. The comorbidity was 21per cent, and the presence of problem in the Axis III or IV rose up to 27per cent and 60per cent. The average number of objectives and techniques were 8.1 and 12.34. And the mean number of therapy sessions was 35.70. Considering a single diagnosis, the social phobia 16 sessions, and 15 for the panic disorder with agoraphobia. The factors that explain the longer treatment length were the presence of comorbidity, the number of applied therapeutic techniques and the diagnosis presence such as the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder PTSD and the Dysthymia. The psychological treatment is comparable to the pharmacological cost. The results showed that at least 64per cent of the patients achieved discharged. The effect sizes reached were large d mayor que 1, with changes statistically significant p menor que.05 after treatment. Psychological length treatment in the clinic does not take much longer than when an action protocol is applied. The utility of generalizing the ETS developed in research setting to a welfare clinic is defended. As well as being able to extrapolate the results of the efficacy studies to the daily clinical work.